multimorbidity
n.— «People with multiple health problems—a condition known as multimorbidity—are largely overlooked both in medical research and in the nation’s clinics and hospitals. The default position is to treat complicated patients as collections of malfunctioning body parts rather than as whole human beings.» —“Treating an Illness Is One Thing. What About a Patient With Many? ” by Siri Carpenter New York Times Mar. 30, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement” speakers interrupt or talk along with someone else to signal their enthusiasm...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...