A recent study determined that unhappiness was not an independent predictor of increased mortality, but one physician wrote in the New York Times that she remains concerned about her patients’ happiness and the impact it could potentially have on their health.

Danielle Ofri, MD, a physician at Bellevue Hospital, is also an associate professor of medicine at the New York School of Medicine, the editor in chief of the Bellevue Literary Review, and a published author. She said physicians will never truly know how interventions impact happiness, because it’s impossible to follow patients around their whole lives to “see what happens,” but she still thinks it’s worth exploring and monitoring how a patient feels.

“When doctors notice unhappiness in their patients, they should be probing more carefully for hidden illness,” Ofri wrote. “Beyond uncovering disorders such as depression, for which unhappiness is a direct symptom, there may be other illnesses lurking.”

To read the full text of Ofri’s editorial, click below: