Ted Talk: A Doctor's Touch

This post may not seem entirely related to organizational behavior or management, but I do believe it ties in at the end.

I came across a Ted Talk recently about modern medicine and how we are losing the importance of physician-patient interaction. I remember in high school I did a physician shadowing program during which our teacher said we would not have the need for physicians by the time we would be graduating medical school because of technology. I thought this was absurd then, and I still believe that now. However, I have seen the change in medicine even in my short life thus far.

I am a very old-fashioned person. I am not a fan of technology. I understand its importance, but for me, I will choose a pen and paper over electronic notes any day. I believe hiding behind the face of the internet makes us look scared. It is impersonal, especially when we are working with humans in such an emotional setting like health care.

Unfortunately now that I am 22, I can no longer see my pediatrician, however, I have seen him since the day I was born. He came to the hospital the day my mom gave birth to give me a check-up. He has taken calls from my mom about me or one of my siblings in the early morning hours. When he is not on-call, he has a close physician who we have all met that takes his place. He is private care, and struggles financially maintaining the cost of private health care, but he would not trade it. He does not practice medicine such as the large "companies" do. He will spend 40 minutes with a patient.

A family of his had come in a while back and their child was very sick. He was fatigued and lethargic. The parents were of course concerned, but no tests were coming back overly alarming. In short time, the parents began to fall ill. After investigation into the parent's symptoms, my doctor recommended they look into their boiler in their home. He feared there may be a slow carbon monoxide leak that could be leading to subsequent poisoning in the family. After the family investigated this, they found that their boiler was almost ready to explode. If my doctor had not paid attention to the health of the entire family, who knows how that story could have ended.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 33 years old. She was told it was probably nothing more than a fibroid, a hard mass, but that she would be fine. Without satisfaction of this answer, she went to a specialist who diagnosed her with breast cancer.

My grandmother suffered from lung cancer for years due to her physician not picking up on an abnormality on her lung scans. She had always had a deep cough, as she was an avid smoker, however, her physician never thought to keep track of her lung scans. When she was diagnosed, she had not had a scan of her lungs in at least 5 years. If her physician had been more on top of the fact that she was an avid smoker with a tell-tale smoker's cough, she may have been able to get treated earlier.

In this Ted Talk, Dr. Verghese discusses the importance of listening to our patients. They have long histories that could give away the answer to their problems, but without asking the necessary questions, we wouldn't find out.

After shadowing a multitude of physicians, many have a checklist of questions to ask and never investigate further. This frustrates me, especially for a wellness check. It is the physician's responsibility to check up on all aspects of their patient's health.

While I have learned a lot from my health management classes, and understand the importance of executives that understand how to run a business, I do not agree with some administrative decisions. I believe that there should not be an expected amount of patients that need to be seen daily and that patients have altering physicians depending on who works that day. For myself, I want to interact with my patients and show that I remember their history and can connect the dots. With the desire to have this kind of physician for myself, I can only hope to be able to practice medicine without the administrative restraints I have seen in my shadowing career. I know that health care would not be able to work without finances and technology, but as future administrators, please realize the issues that come with time limits, restraints, and lack of physician-patient interactions when we focus primarily on the money and not how to be good health care providers. Technology may lower costs,  but it takes away from the personal aspect of medicine.