I Want To Change THIS About Healthcare

I could get on my high horse for this post and speak about making sure everyone has adequate coverage, but our country seems to be making strives in this.  So I am going to speak to another thing that I would love to change.  I would love to bring compassion back to healthcare.

OK, so I'm still on my high horse.  For profit health care has made it impossible for doctors to spend enough time with their patients to make a connection.  Instead the doctor is forced to stick to a schedule that hardly leaves enough time to properly diagnose the patient never the less make a connection.  So what's so bad if a doctor and patient don't have a connection you ask?  A lot when the patient has a chronic illness.

Patients are less apt to open up to a doctor when they don't feel a bond.  When the patient suffers from a humiliating disease like Ulcerative Colitis it can make disclosing important information very difficult or impossible.  How can you talk about blood in your poop or even pooping your pants when you have only spoken five words with someone?  How do you bring up leaking  poop from your vagina or pain in your testicles when you feel the need to poop as your doctor is walking out of the office to the next appointment? The answer is you usually do not.  Symptoms go by without discussion.  Doctors do not get the full story and the patient continues to suffer.

Another thing a doctor should do for his patient is advocate.  There are many cases when the insurance companies deny patients coverage that is necessary to their health.  It is the doctors job to step in and prove to the insurance company that the patient needs the drug, needs the extra stay, or needs extra visits.  Without  the connection the doctor is more apt to let the insurance company dictate care.  A doctor will fight for the patient when he's invested in the patient's well being.

I have had both kinds of doctors.  I have had the sympathetic, kindhearted doctor and I have had to cold, unfeeling doctor.  They both were well skilled in their specialties, but there is one I will never go back to.  There is one that misdiagnosed me because he would not spend the time to listen and care.  There was also the other who I told my deepest and darkest secret to first.  The one that fought for the best treatments available to me.  This is the difference.

It's time healthcare took just as much time on compassion as it does on a diagnosis. More time needs to be spent on psychology and sociology in medical school.  More time needs to be allowed during the office visit to give the doctor a chance to delve into the patient's life.  This will change the future of healthcare.