Dr. Good and Feel-Good
According to a recent Mayo Clinic survey, people would like their doctors to be confident, empathetic, human, personal, forthright, respectful and thorough. Throw a few more adjectives, and you've got yourself a regular Hippocratic Boy Scout Oath.
At the top of any list of qualities I look for in a physician is competence. Neurosurgeons can be swell guys or gals, people I wouldn't mind having a few drinks with at one of New Jersey's healthy smoke-free saloons, but unless they know their way around a prefrontal cortex, I really don't want them taking a drill to our cranium.
But let's assume the crackerjack team of medical professionals working to make me whole in the hospital is full of top-notch doctors. Well, then, I'll take all the empathetic personal respect we can get. Because it can be disconcerting and disheartening to be lying in a hospital bed and finding yourself reduced to nothing but your pathology.
I remember when I was recovering from gall bladder surgery years ago, a doctor and a group of medical students gathered around my bed one morning, not to see me but the work the surgeon had done. "That's a beautiful scar,'' they all mumbled and then shuffled off without so much as a "How are you doin'?'' to the patient.
I understand the economics of patient care these days. Doctors see more patients in a day then they used to while the number of hours in a day has remained at 24. But does it really take more time to look someone in the eye, smile and call someone by name than it does to be coldly efficient and early rude? I submit that it does not.
I'm not sure that, even if every physician was the very model of a modern Mayo Clinic sensitive doctor, we'd get better faster. But we'd all feel more human. And that is a very good thing indeed.
At the top of any list of qualities I look for in a physician is competence. Neurosurgeons can be swell guys or gals, people I wouldn't mind having a few drinks with at one of New Jersey's healthy smoke-free saloons, but unless they know their way around a prefrontal cortex, I really don't want them taking a drill to our cranium.
But let's assume the crackerjack team of medical professionals working to make me whole in the hospital is full of top-notch doctors. Well, then, I'll take all the empathetic personal respect we can get. Because it can be disconcerting and disheartening to be lying in a hospital bed and finding yourself reduced to nothing but your pathology.
I remember when I was recovering from gall bladder surgery years ago, a doctor and a group of medical students gathered around my bed one morning, not to see me but the work the surgeon had done. "That's a beautiful scar,'' they all mumbled and then shuffled off without so much as a "How are you doin'?'' to the patient.
I understand the economics of patient care these days. Doctors see more patients in a day then they used to while the number of hours in a day has remained at 24. But does it really take more time to look someone in the eye, smile and call someone by name than it does to be coldly efficient and early rude? I submit that it does not.
I'm not sure that, even if every physician was the very model of a modern Mayo Clinic sensitive doctor, we'd get better faster. But we'd all feel more human. And that is a very good thing indeed.
posted by Michael Riley at 12:09 PM
3 Comments:
I also feel that some doctors treat you as not being physically in the same room. I would like to share how I get their attention upon the first office visit in the hopes that they will remember me later when it's really needed...like in pre-op. Once they come into the exam room and introduce themselves, I acknowledge them, and then tell them I have 2 questions before we get started. This puts them on alert immediately as they are usually the ones "in charge" of the interview, and they usually say yes or ok...what else can they say if they want my money?
Question #1: Do you believe in God and miracles. That usually stops them right off, because they are wondering how to answer that question and be "politically correct" with their answer.
Question #2: Do they have a great sense of humor? By now, they are relieved they didn't have time to answer question #1, and are now trying to think of something funny to say. I start laughing, and the ice is broken. The doctors now know me.
Of course, there are some out there that never see anyone even when they are looking into another person's eyes. But, if I'm the one on the operating room table, I don't want them to be looking into my eyes unless they are an eye surgeon. :)
Ps from above comment: being a person with a legal pad full of medical diagnosis' and some training in the medical field, I have a bit of experience to draw upon. Keep telling yourself...it's nothing personal. Just imagine them in the bed, you are the doctor, and forget they are human. It's nothing personal.
Hope you are feeling better now. :)
My daughter and I have same name, I am 50, she is 22..we share same gyno...she started going over notes from my chart at my daughter's check-up,mistakenly given to her by her staff, but she should have looked at d.o.b(and up at my daughter) and the fact I had 2 c/sects in 1981/1983..oh, I don't know, red flag!...1983 was the year my daughter was born and I know she does not look 50, as I do not look 22!( ok, maybe I look 42)...
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