BMJ  2007;334 (5 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39204.441678.3A

Editor's Choice

US editor's choice

Where the patient is

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The BMJ's stated mission is to help doctors make better decisions, and sometimes that comes through understanding what patients feel. Our sporadic series called "A patient's journey" offers a voice to patients to help us understand what we can never really know—what it feels like to have a specific disease.

Ray Jobling has had psoriasis for more than 50 years, since he was 14. In a moving and informative essay he relates how he has felt, how he has been treated, and how he has coped (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39184.615150.802). In a sidebar, his dermatologist responds. There are no easy answers given, no magic bullets revealed. But it is an excellent and very helpful description of living with a chronic disease.

Another tidbit about how patients feel comes in an editorial from Andre Tylee and Paul Walters (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39197.619190.80). They dispute the conventional wisdom that depressed patients respond slowly . . . [Full text of this article]

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