Soon-to-graduate medical students, from left to right, Ronald Zviti, Shriji Patel, Marisa Earley and Nakul Raykar, met with cardiac patient Albert Naples on May 25 at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey as part of a program that pairs medical students with dying patients; Mr. Naples died two days later.
via www.nytimes.com
Ok, first off let me say that this is a good program and I want it to succeed and expand. Medical students paired with people in the hospital who are dying and have no one to be with them.
The bit that gets me is that we've gotten so caught up in the gizmos and technology of health care that we forget the core of what we do is in the interaction. We've stripped dignity and respect out of our profession by labeling patients as "non compliant" as opposed to taking the time to truly listen and better understand why a person might choose not to follow the course prescribed by their physician.
We are so infatuated with procedures, imaging, and pharmaceuticals - for which I am professionally and personally indebted but let's get some perspective going here folks! Relationship is the vehicle of our work and often trumps other interventions we deploy. Patients who respect their physician are more likely to have a colorectal cancer exam (a nasty but valuable intervention). Patients are more likely to respect a physician who they say listens to them and treats them with respect (by not keeping them waiting too long, for instance).
This is a great program UMDNJ, keep it up. Let's see more programs like it across the country, but for goodness sake, let's figure out how to get a beleaguered health care workforce off the hamster wheel so that our natural inclination to interact with and support our patients can have unfettered reign.
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