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Lessons From My Left Foot
Thomas Bodenheimer
Background A primary care physician reflects on how his experience with a chronic foot injury taught him important lessons about living with a chronic condition: people with chronic conditions may blame themselves, may feel guilty that other people have to help them, often have depression that may be worse than the chronic condition itself, and may lose confidence in their capacity to do anything useful in life. He concludes these feelings need to be elicited and addressed when physicians provide care to people with chronic conditions.
