Target Audience: This talk is designed for physicians and other healthcare personnel, as well as for patients.
The goal is to create some common understanding of the inherent healing power of a committed, patient-physician relationship. This can be envisioned as a true partnership, with each individual bringing their own expertise to the table. An open acknowledgment of the inherent uncertainties within medicine/healthcare can result in a mutually agreed-upon treatment plan. This in turn can be the basis of a trusting relationship, characterized by greater adherence to that plan. Multiple medical studies confirm subsequent substantial improvements in health and mortality reduction.
Learning Objectives:
Preserving the Patient-Physician Relationship.
- Present evidence revealing that dollar-driven decision-making has become ascendant, displacing patient-centered choices.
- Illustrate the scope of the problem of the near-sacred patient-physician relationship being aggressively converted to the less effective and more expensive “consumer-provider” model.
- Conclude with an overview of Dr. George L. Engel’s biopsychosocial model of illness. This was a more or less theoretical construct when first proposed in 1977, but it is now supported by the following multiple published medical studies confirming the inherent power in that patient-physician connection; i.e. that more knowledgeable patients become more engaged in the planning of their treatment, are subsequently more adherent and their mortality rate risks are then halved!
