Neglecting the patient in the Era of Health IT
Not to see what lies dimly in the distance but to do what clearly lies at hand
Dr Verghese from Stanford who has authored several books make the point that the doctor patient interaction is the most important aspect of healthcare
Here he talks about the importance of being present during the exam, in an era with so many distractions threatening to erode the vital relationship between doctor and patient. This interview was introduced by CEO Jonathan Bush and then appeared in two parts on the
And I commented on this back in 2008 in this piece
Doctor Please look at me not Your EMR that featured my own family experiences at the doctors office that I personally as excited about but my then 10 year old pointed out to me that all the attention was not eh technology not the patient
BUt it would seem that some clinicians are able to manage th challenges of time
One of my heroes is a physician who trained at Harvard and came from a small community in Laredo, Texas. He trained at Harvard and went back to Laredo and practices now, even in his 80s. And he has this ability to walk into a room and sit on the patient’s bed and create the illusion that he has all kinds of time and nowhere else he needs to be. And paradoxically by being so completely in the moment he manages to spend less time with patients than many of us who are hurrying to get on to the next thing.
So if there was some advice for busy clinicians today from the famous Scottish historian and critic Thomas Carlyle:
Not to see what lies dimly in the distance but to do what clearly lies at hand
Seems that this is good advice not just for healthcare but life in general given all the distraction we face
