ABSTRACT
A patient’s failure to get well frustrates one of the primary goals and needs of the health care worker, and feelings of frustration lead rapidly to feeling angry. It is safe to say that most health care workers have experienced disease and death somewhere in their own extended family constellation. Indeed, in many such workers such experiences have been important or even major motivation forces in the choice of career. The reaction of overprotectiveness is a common one in those treating children with cancer. This may represent a conscious attempt to protect the child from further damage, especially with those children whose disease has produced sequellae, such as partial or total blindness or unsteadiness of gait, which realistically endanger the child in his daily functioning. Individual workers in relation to each other and/or workers from one field in relation to those in another field may begin to accuse each other of failing to properly perform various services for the child.
