Sooyoung Lee, a recent medical graduate, writes in the British Journal of General Practice about the attitudes to ME/CFS she saw whilst a medical student.
Among the many positive aspects of this, one less desirable theme that I noticed was the negative attitudes towards patients with a background of medically unexplained symptoms such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyeitis (ME), which appear to be widespread across the specialities. These negative attitudes were portrayed in the form of passing comments made by doctors about CFS/ME patients as being ‘difficult’, as well as dismissing the severity of the pain and/or fatigue experienced by them.
She describes the unconscious bias against ME/CFS that develops from the negative attitudes expressed in medical schools and argues for a change to the way the illness is covered and advocates the use of evidence based teaching to inform students of the reality of the condition.