Doctor-Patient Relationship

I was very moved by the readings in Bedside Manner this week. The field of medicine itself is so complex, but for me, nothing more so than the doctor-patient relationship. It is important to practice personalized medicine and treat each patient with an open mind while taking into account individual differences that may not necessarily follow the studies or statistics or textbooks one learns in medical school. The misdiagnoses in the cases we read show that people are unpredictable- the book cover may look the same for many books, but we still need to open it and read it in order to understand the entire story.

Modern medicine has definitely seen a general trend on the emphasis of the patient in the doctor-patient relationship. With greater access of medical information to the general public, patients are coming into offices more knowledgeable about their condition. It is interesting to be a pre-medical student who is still a patient, but trying to understand what it is like on the other side of the fence. As a patient, the internet is a useful tool in understanding a physician's diagnosis or (as I personally think many people do) self-diagnose one's symptoms. Self-diagnosis can mean weeks or months without seeing a doctor, which can lead to serious illness that WebMD can't diagnose. This is also contributing to a growing doubt in the skill of a once revered profession. I admit that I have used the internet to find out good questions to ask my doctor, but I draw the line at report cards on my doctor.

Where is the trust in medicine? Are patients putting more trust in technology than in their doctors? It would be difficult for anyone to accept nowadays that even with all the new, advanced technologies and improved teaching of future doctors, medicine is still limited. Who can really say if there is really a difference in prolonging a life 10 days or 10 weeks? I think that there is something wrong if medicine is starting to substitute quantity for quality.