
I read a thoughtful post at See First entitled, What Really Matters. The blog’s name, See First, is taken from a quote from Sir William Osler, one of medicine’s greatest luminaries who emphasized the importance of learning medicine at the beside. The post is a plea for physicians to strive to achieve caring and compassionate bedside manners. It emphasizes the importance of attentiveness, communication and empathy with patients. Though it is not stated, the author clearly understands that the doctor-patient relationship is the essential element of the healing art. While every physician knows this, we still need to be reminded of this truth, from time to time.
I commented on his blog that the piece was spot on. I agree unreservedly that patients deserve compassion and caring from their physicians. They deserve appointments without bleating pagers and phone calls. They deserve eye contact. They deserve an opportunity to say 3 or 4 sentences without interruption. They deserve enough time to get their point across. They deserve to be heard. They deserve a doctor who is focused solely on their medical interests, without extraneous distractions.
Although patients deserve all of this, they don’t always get it. Why are today’s bedside manners often less robust than they should be? I offer no excuses, but there are explanations for patients to be aware of.
There are many forces swirling in physicians’ minds today that distract us and threaten our doctor-patient relationships. We try to muffle these demons that are whispering in our ears. We try to compartmentalize them and stifle their interference, but we are members of the human species. Sometimes, they win and we fail. When you visit your physician, here are a few distractions that he won’t mention or record in your medical chart.
- Physicians are working harder each year for less money.
- Physicians battle insurance companies every day to receive money we have already earned.
- Physicians are demoralized by an unfair medical malpractice system.
- Private practice physicians are being driven out by corporate medicine.
- Employed physicians have limited professional autonomy and must genuflect to administrators and bean-counting bureaucrats.
- Medical practices in private medicine have all the stresses and challenges of running a business - payroll, inventory, staffing, overhead and unexpected crises.
- Physicians must plow through mounds of ridiculous paperwork every day.
- Physicians are required to participate in government and insurance company quality programs that have no effect on medical quality, but cost us money and time.
- Health care reform may proceed at the expense of the medical profession.
Despite these distractions, physicians should provide patients with the care and attention they deserve, even though this task is harder than ever. Ironically, we physicians increasingly feel that no one is giving us care and attention. We’re not getting it from the government. We’re not getting it from the insurance companies. We're not getting it from the press. We're certainly not getting it from the legal community. Our patients may be our last best hope for showing us some understanding. This gesture would revitalize us and shake off the demons. Then, we could try a little harder to give you Marcus Welby, M.D. instead of Dr. Gregory House.