How to form a strong patient-physician relationship is perhaps the most important skill you will learn as a medical student. You will start developing that skill anew with each patient you meet.
If you do not have a strong bond with your patient, he or she may not give you the full and honest story. Without that information, you may be led astray on the diagnosis, and subsequently, the patient is much less likely to follow your recommendations.
The patient may be afraid to tell you if he or she feels you will be disappointed or angry with his or her behavior. You will have no idea why the treatment failed and the patient isn’t progressing.
[Learn about pursuing leadership skills for success in a health care career.]
On the other hand, a positive and caring relationship allows the patient to give you the whole story, even if it isn’t pretty. The patient will trust you enough to share his or her hidden concerns about what caused the problem or the guilt he or she may feel because of that.
A strong, healthy patient-physician relationship will be open to flaws in both the patient and the doctor. You both won’t let little imperfections get in the way of working together as a team for the patient’s health.
Given the importance of the patient-physician relationship, medical schools help students learn to develop the skills necessary to have successful relationships.
First-Hand Experience
Perhaps the most powerful way that medical schools teach patient-physician relationship is by allowing students to hear directly from patients. Your first experiences with this will likely happen while you are a premed undergraduate student.
[Learn how to find the right physician shadowing experience.]
However, if you don’t shadow physicians during college, you may opt to shadow a variety of subspecialties during medical school. You may ask your student affairs dean or physician adviser for suggestions or connections to physicians who are willing to let you shadow during your first two years.
As a medical student, you will participate in communication courses, and the school will usually arrange some clinical time for you. More often than not, this is in a general practice as opposed to a subspecialty and may be part of the communications class during your first or second year.
Most schools have standardized patients — that is, paid actors who represent patients with particular conditions, moods or other personal characteristics — you work with before you start seeing real patients. These session aim to help you understand the roots of the patient-physician relationship.
Almost every medical school, if not all, also now teach in the outpatient clinics in addition to hospital wards. This is not only for their accreditation but because many physicians only practice in the outpatient setting and much less often in the hospital. This is the setting for preventive medicine, yearly checkups and most of the care that is provided to patients.
Developing a Patient-Physician Relationship
During all of these first-hand experiences and during your clinical clerkship year, often year three of medical school, you will have opportunities to observe and learn about patient-physician relationships.
How does the physician review the chart before meeting the patient? A physician needs to understand the purpose of the patient’s visit and whether the individual has been trying to get treatment for the same symptom for long time.
The chart helps the physician understand how the patient has dealt with this concern and what limitations may have already been documented. If the doctor enters the room without this information, the patient may feel the doctor doesn’t care enough to understand what he or she has been through in the past.
Next, watch how the doctor greets the patient. Does the physician express warmth? Does he or she show evidence of true caring? How does the physician ask the patient questions?
[Discover six signs of a compassionate medical school.]
A patient does not want to be interrupted while sharing his or her story, but the individual may have trouble organizing the history in a meaningful way for the physician. How does the physician let the patient know he or she cares but may need to additional information on another related topic.
Look for how the physician shows respect during the physical examination and while explaining the diagnosis. Consider the way the doctor frames the information in a way that the patient can understand.
Gentleness in answering questions and being patient with the individual’s concerns are critical for the physician to gain the patient’s trust. Watch how the doctor explains next steps, reviews what is unnecessary and sets up a follow-up appointment — all of this can reassure the patient that the doctor cares.
As you pursue begin to identify medical schools you would like to attend, be sure to ask each school how it teaches students to develop patient-physician relationships. And ask current students at each school how they would rate the school in this arena and how the students have felt connected to the patients they’ve seen and vice versa.
More from U.S. News
Undergrad Courses to Take for MCAT Success
3 Tips for Crafting a Research Narrative for Medical School Interviews
4 Ways to Make Premedical Research Experience Count
Medical Schools Teach Value of Patient-Physician Relationships originally appeared on usnews.com
