Wow, I am so glad Chris Kresser(renowned functional medicine physician/acupuncturist) shared this article. It speaks volumes to the doctor patient connection and the various assitants involved with the doctor and or hospital. What becomes even more sickly to one's healing, is the time health care practitioners are willing to give you or who fail to include you the patient as the biggest part of the team. Instead the doctor turns you over to a specialist and or an office manager who often fails to return calls or answer questions. You the key player are left in the void. At some point, you start to feel guilty for asking questions of advice or seeking out answers to help you understand your situation. Where the doctor/nurse/office manager/ even staff/patient relationship makes you think maybe you need to see a shrink to figure out how to handle your own health care and the doctors you seek to connect with. You, as the patient maybe willing and ready but you are getting left out on their end. In the meantime, you have a nagging feeling your physical problem is getting worse because time is ticking and emotionally you are frustrated from the lack of empathy and understanding you receive, from the confused, unspoken messages given off in your quest. When a person has a health issue that is complex this can be damaging to their health but even more so to their self esteem. There is nothing worse than to be left without encouragement and hope especially when you have been told in some way it can be fixed.
I think a doctor who honestly shares and provides alternatives and takes the time to sit and go over your treatment protocal, who is open, caring, looks at your history from all angles, and listens to your concerns and fears, understands your need to gather different opinions, to weigh those out with you, even if they do not have all the answers, is the kind we all gain a level of trust in. This, in itself is the thing that contributes to the healing process, when a doctor and or nurse/office assitant educates his patient about the procedures they may utilize. Unfortunately, as the article tells, too little time, too many patients and too much paperwork, insurance documentation and fear of liability has left out the human element and this connection. The people who work in these health institutions have become rote, frustrated and impatient themselves, are often on antidepressants and antianxiety meds, overweight, have health issues as a result of dealing with the crisis it has become. I remember going into my dentist office, a small one, 14 years ago where they welcomed me with smiles and "Hi Carolyn, how are you today?" and made you feel like the only person that mattered and more than that, they made you feel comfortable, as going to the dentist can often be intimidating to say the least, they took the time to explain the procedures, did not make you feel rushed, sadly, I have not seen this greeting or care in too many offices these days with or without a complex problem. Not all of course are like this but many are.
I have observed that even so called alternative medicine or functional medicine has begun to be like this. Patients who come to us as a last resort, frustrated, sad, disillusioned and maybe even angry, try our patience as we seek to help them. When it is too complex a problem, or the patient is resistant to the commitment of time and education involved, we have to be honest ourselves and let them know it is out of our scope, or you need to come at this from many angles, with no gaurantee we can help them and we have to remember to be emphatic, calm even in the face of a disconcerted, overwhelmed patient who cannot take on what we propose. We can, however, continue to provide healing support even if we cannot give them the cure or solution they are looking for; we can slowly educate them to empower themselves. We can help them relax enough to help the body heal on a deeper level, to help them through their medical procedures and improve outcomes and most of all we can take the time to listen, but if all we care about is time and getting the next patient in, it starts to look like the picture of this article. If my priority, is to see 15 to 25 people a day, this care goes down the drain, not to mention my own health. By the same token if the patient is skeptically resistant to what is offered and does not have the time the doctor wants to give him, than that in itself is a problem. I do not know how doctors seeing 40 or even 30 people a day do it, but maybe it explains why a lot of them are not well themselves. I think they cannot help but pass that on to their patients. Time away from the office allows me to heal so I can better heal my patients and creating that empty space allows my unconscious self to bring solutions because the most profound insights occur when the mind is empty of all thought, when the mind is still. This is why people are seeking out spiritual avenues, once they have exhausted the answers with their doctors, because illness often goes beyond the physical. How do we bring this spiritual tie back into the art of practicing medicine? True Chinese Daoism reflected this art. I believe sitting in peace with a healing spiritual teacher can be very powerful as well.
Doctors Tell All—and It’s Bad
www.theatlantic.com
A crop of books by disillusioned physicians reveals a corrosive doctor-patient relationship at the heart of our health-care crisis.
