That Dr Rob article
24 Jul 2010 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatA lot of people are commenting about this article, a doctor's letter to patients with chronic disease:
http://distractible.org/2010/07/14/a-letter-to-patients-with-chronic-disease/
I get that Dr Rob means well and I like that he admits doctors are scared by chronic conditions and by the fact that many patients with chronic conditions know more about their conditions than the doctor does. I do think respect goes a long way toward improving communications between people. However, I don't think it works when he tries to pretend the doctor and the patient are equal:
"just like you know your disease better than any doctor, I know what being a doctor feels like"
"we have worked very hard to earn our position; it was not bestowed by fiat or family tree. Just as you want to be listened to, so do we."
"The best care happens when a doctor understands the patient and the patient understands the doctor."
In a typical doctor-patient interaction, the doctor and the patient are not equal. The doctor has much more power. And although Dr. Rob addresses that the patient is suffering, he completely ignores the power imbalance in the post.
The post got a great many comments and he engaged a lot with the comments trying to explain where he's coming from. In the comments, he sees people saying stuff about the power relationship, but he doesn't get that the power relationship is systemic and what that means. He says stuff like "docs are insecure about their position of power," and he talks about how the good doctors wish the bad doctors would go away. But he doesn't understand that this power imbalance inevitably affects the doctor-patient relationship even in the case of good doctors who mean well.
At a NAAFA conference a few years ago I went to a talk that really hammered home the point that the medical system is a system, and in that system patients are roles and not individuals, and therefore it is very difficult to get your needs met if you have individual needs that the system doesn't have a systematized solution for. (Case in point: After the OH had an operation to install his cochlear implant, the hospital staff persisted in trying to communicate with him by talking, although he had a bandage on his head and was completely deaf.) I wish Dr Rob could have gone to that talk.
http://distractible.org/2010/07/14/a-letter-to-patients-with-chronic-disease/
I get that Dr Rob means well and I like that he admits doctors are scared by chronic conditions and by the fact that many patients with chronic conditions know more about their conditions than the doctor does. I do think respect goes a long way toward improving communications between people. However, I don't think it works when he tries to pretend the doctor and the patient are equal:
"just like you know your disease better than any doctor, I know what being a doctor feels like"
"we have worked very hard to earn our position; it was not bestowed by fiat or family tree. Just as you want to be listened to, so do we."
"The best care happens when a doctor understands the patient and the patient understands the doctor."
In a typical doctor-patient interaction, the doctor and the patient are not equal. The doctor has much more power. And although Dr. Rob addresses that the patient is suffering, he completely ignores the power imbalance in the post.
The post got a great many comments and he engaged a lot with the comments trying to explain where he's coming from. In the comments, he sees people saying stuff about the power relationship, but he doesn't get that the power relationship is systemic and what that means. He says stuff like "docs are insecure about their position of power," and he talks about how the good doctors wish the bad doctors would go away. But he doesn't understand that this power imbalance inevitably affects the doctor-patient relationship even in the case of good doctors who mean well.
At a NAAFA conference a few years ago I went to a talk that really hammered home the point that the medical system is a system, and in that system patients are roles and not individuals, and therefore it is very difficult to get your needs met if you have individual needs that the system doesn't have a systematized solution for. (Case in point: After the OH had an operation to install his cochlear implant, the hospital staff persisted in trying to communicate with him by talking, although he had a bandage on his head and was completely deaf.) I wish Dr Rob could have gone to that talk.
no subject
Date: 25 Jul 2010 07:40 pm (UTC)It's great when health providers ask that.