Doctors are adjusting their bedside manner as better informed patients make ever-increasing demands and expect to be listened to, and fully involved, in clinical decisions that directly affect their care. In a study just published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, Dr. J. Bohannon Mason of the Orthocarolina Hip and Knee Center in Charlotte, NC, USA, looks at the changes in society, the population and technology that are influencing the way patients view their orthopaedic surgeons. As patients gain knowledge, their attitude to medicine changes: They no longer show their doctors absolute and unquestionable respect.Is this a blessing or a curse? On the one hand, developments in technology have produced more informed patients that do not blindly succumb to the will of their seemingly omnipotent physicians, and can use efficient internet tools in order to research information on signs, symptoms, diagnoses and procedures, statistics, risks, etc. On the other hand, these same factors have resulted in patients becoming more arrogant, disrespectful to doctors, and impetuous in selecting medical treatments. After all, looking up information on the internet is certainly no substitute for the experience and training that a typical physician would have acquired. It is also common that such a savvy patient would be more susceptible to medical marketing and influenced by factors other than evidence-based medicine.
Thoughts?
3 comments:
While there is something to be said for the patient as a 'customer' to be informed, medical care is one market in which deference to experts (the doctors!) may not necessarily be a bad thing.
Online information is also usually incomplete and lists only the most obvious of symptoms. While doctors themselves are sometimes arrogant pricks that miss information (the latter being for a good reason), it's more dangerous for someone without any sort of medical background to be making or forcing medical decisions.
It's great to be informed and knowledgeable of what the doctors are telling a family, but a sliver of knowledge is nothing compared to several years of schooling, testing, and experience.
I agree with Eugene, though doctors can be pretty stupid, the average patient is a complete moron. Just look at my students. They couldn't tell the difference between a living and non-living thing if their lives depended on it.
The overall lack of scientific literacy in America is feeding this huge divide between what doctors are doing to treat patients and what patients need to know to get treated properly.
When I asked my students how they deal with medical emergencies, they say they basically allow the doctors to do whatever they want. Patients have lost all decision making abilities since they lack the basic knowledge to say yes or no to basic/complex medical procedures.
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