The Doctor-Patient Relationship Is The Primary Mode Of

Despite the idea of physicians as, by definition, healers, they often play an unbalanced role in the patient-doctor relationship. Doctors may have a disproportionate amount of power in their relationship with the patient; a patient's life may literally be in their hands. The patient-doctor relationship thus often manifests as a microcosm of a wider hierarchy of medicine present in today's healthcare system. Even small things, like a doctor’s white coat, can reinforce this hierarchy; patients view doctors who wear a white coat as having greater authority and expertise (Boutin-Foster, Foster, & Konopasek,

For physicians practicing in the 19th century, there was a deep connection between mind and body. In the eyes

In Cutting for Stone Thomas Stone asks, “What treatment in an emergency is administrated by ear?” The correct answer is “Words of comfort.” Just this one statement encapsulates the books surprising take on medicine this question also reminds me of experiences I have had with doctors and hospitals. I will be discussing these topics along with how Cutting for Stone tells us about the roles of compassion, faith, and hop in medicine.

On the other hand, western medicine doctors diagnose the problem by observing the physical symptoms, screening the blood, and perform various other medical techniques that rely on advanced medical education and training. Doctors are concerned with the physical symptoms and disregard the “soul” which in turn conflicts with the Hmong culture because they believe in souls and higher mental processes. Fadiman’s proved that the central argument was the collision between the Hmong culture and the physical disease treatment of western medicine.

doi:10.1177/1363461512444673 Kleinman, A., Eisenberg, L., & Good, B. (1978). Culture, illness, and care: Clinical lessons from anthropologic and cross-cultural research. Annals of Internal Medicine, 88(2), 251. Lemieux-Charles, L., & McGuire, W. L. (2006).

The United States is known for its melting pot of cultures, which creates one of the most contentious issues in the medical world which is the clash of cultures. The book we read “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” is a great example of how a miss communication and struggle between cultures which lead to a very dismal end. The difference in beliefs cause constant issues in communication, even though both want what is best.

This chapter focuses on some of the conflict between the Hmong healing traditions and the doctor’s practice in medicine. The Hmongs took the doctors prescriptions as advice not as orders, and they did whatever they wanted regardless of what the doctor prescribed, but at the same time if they left the doctor’s office without being prescribed something, they felt cheated. The doctors and the Hmong have many problems communicating because of the language barrier and cultural barrier. This makes it hard for the doctors to try and treat someone, and some of the Hmong’s healing techniques aren’t acceptable and considered abuse in America.

From the dawn of time healing has been influenced by many different issues, such as religion, politics of the time, different philosophies, and vested interest such as money. There had been conflicts between Eastern and Western medicine for a long time. Eastern medicine is viewed by many people in the West as having no validity and makes little sense to those who view the body in parts and pieces. Eastern medicine has long viewed the body as mind, body and spirit as one entity. To understand the ideas of each Eastern and Western medicine its history has to be taken into consideration

Cultural diversity in the medical field is, at times, greatly hindered because of religious beliefs, language barriers, and the hierarchies of diverse cultures and these have the propensity to affect the continuity of care for the patients. “Every person has different aspects that constitute their identities, according to how they see themselves….This means that seeing an individual in terms of

America is a melting pot of different cultures, and with the cultural diversity there comes differences in healthcare traditions and decisions (Racher & Annis, 2007). Whether it’s a religious approach to healthcare or a cultural tradition, everyone has a different approach to his or her health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the author’s heritage and healthcare traditions, differences in other cultures and their healthcare traditions and the effect that their heritage can have on healthcare, and the

ADHD, defiance disorder, pregnancy, these are just few of the things medicalized in the West (Davies 1995). With the rising prestige of Doctors in the 19th century, came a widening of the gap of knowledge between Doctors and the general population (Davies 1995). Doctors have kept a sort of lock on medical knowledge, enabling them to medicalize all sorts of “issues” aided by the idea of the medical mystique. But with the emergence of medicalization and cures that are being searched for by Doctors, a new problem has arisen. This fixation on curing illnesses has led to Doctors viewing patients as experiments and not as human beings, this is seen especially in technologically advanced societies as exemplified in the movie Wit. In addition to this new problem, there are clear establishments of hierarchy between medical professionals such as Doctors and nurses as well as the emotional detachments with the patients which can lead to patients feeling left out and alone.

Sir Luke Fildes, a renowned painter of the late Victorian age, completed an oil painting titled The Doctor, in 18871. It captures in a glimpse the socio-historical milieu which shaped the identity of the General Practitioner in Victorian England since the 1840s. The painting shows a doctor attending the sickbed of a poor child. Though a candle is burning still, a natural light also comes in, suggesting that it is now dawn, and the child has survived the night. The doctor’s figure represents a calm and soothing heroism at the face of death. He has spent, it seems, a sleepless night, nursing the sick child.

Townsend and Davidson (1988) also suggested that the term health is derived from the word “whole”, which is a recipient of the healing process. Therefore, an attempt to heal or cure in medical field literally means, to make whole or restore health. It is this idea that influences medicine to adopt a mechanistic approach towards disease management thereby obscuring the understanding of health in human context of well-being, which advocates for alternative or complementary approaches. This viewpoint also reflects in some definitions and the medical model discussed above. The criticisms of the medical by Illich (1974) is that the medical view only deals with the cause of disease or illness rather than the external factors affecting the person’s health. Within different sections of medicine, for example the mental health department, there are marked differences when explaining the origin of illness, disease and treatments.

The doctor-patient relationship always has been and will remain an essential basis of care, in which high quality information is gathered and procedures are made as well as provided. This relationship is a critical foundation to medical ethics that all doctors should attempt to follow and live by. Patients must also have confidence in their physicians to trust the solutions and work around created to counter act certain illnesses and disease. Doctor-patient relationships can directly be observed in both the stories and poems of Dr. William Carlos Williams as well as in the clinical tales of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Both of these doctors have very similar and diverse relationships with multiple patients

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.