What Makes a Good Doctor? Hard to Say
What Makes a Good Doctor? Hard to Say
Docs, Nurses, Patients Sound Off In Medical-Journal
British Medical Journal
The BMJ devotes its Sept. 28 issue to the topic. Perhaps the most interesting section is the letters column, which this week carries some of the 102 responses the journal received from all over the world. The journal posted two questions on its web site: What makes a good doctor? How can we make one?
BMJ Associate Editor Alex Vass, MD, says he expected a consensus would emerge. He now says that expectation may have been somewhat naïve.
"We didn't come up with a definitive answer," Vass tells WebMD. "Some writers felt it to be something precise like competence or caring. Others thought being a good doctor involves ethereal qualities that cannot be described in words."
Some excerpts from the BMJ letters:
"We want doctors to be happy and healthy, caring and competent, and good travel companions for people through the journey we call life." -- Carlos A. Rizo, MD, and colleagues at University Health Network, Toronto.
"My feeling is that to be a doctor requires a lot of science but also a little bit of 'magic.' ... Patients need knowledge, but that is not all. They need someone who cares about people, not about illnesses." -- Gabriel S. Gorin Rosenbaum, MD, Center for Dermatology, Bogotá, Colombia.
"We are trying to make doctors too good today, and that is the problem. ... Doctors reel under the breadth of expertise they are supposed to master. ... The truly good doctor ... must be able to understand patients in enough breadth to call on a community of skilled healers -- nurses, social workers, insurance specialists, yoga teachers, psychotherapists, technicians, chaplains, whatever is necessary -- to help restore the person to health (or, perhaps, to support the person in their journey towards death). To do that, the doctor must be able to be touched by the patient's life as well as his or her illness." -- Paul Root Wolpe, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
"The good doctor ... is always searching for, moving towards, and finding creative solutions in the moment at hand, able to hold both hope and failure simultaneously, being different things to different people and thereby meeting myriad needs." -- Valerie James, King's Fund, London.
What Makes a Good Doctor? Hard to Say.
Docs, Nurses, Patients Sound Off In Medical-Journal
British Medical Journal
The BMJ devotes its Sept. 28 issue to the topic. Perhaps the most interesting section is the letters column, which this week carries some of the 102 responses the journal received from all over the world. The journal posted two questions on its web site: What makes a good doctor? How can we make one?
BMJ Associate Editor Alex Vass, MD, says he expected a consensus would emerge. He now says that expectation may have been somewhat naïve.
"We didn't come up with a definitive answer," Vass tells WebMD. "Some writers felt it to be something precise like competence or caring. Others thought being a good doctor involves ethereal qualities that cannot be described in words."
Some excerpts from the BMJ letters:
"We want doctors to be happy and healthy, caring and competent, and good travel companions for people through the journey we call life." -- Carlos A. Rizo, MD, and colleagues at University Health Network, Toronto.
"My feeling is that to be a doctor requires a lot of science but also a little bit of 'magic.' ... Patients need knowledge, but that is not all. They need someone who cares about people, not about illnesses." -- Gabriel S. Gorin Rosenbaum, MD, Center for Dermatology, Bogotá, Colombia.
"We are trying to make doctors too good today, and that is the problem. ... Doctors reel under the breadth of expertise they are supposed to master. ... The truly good doctor ... must be able to understand patients in enough breadth to call on a community of skilled healers -- nurses, social workers, insurance specialists, yoga teachers, psychotherapists, technicians, chaplains, whatever is necessary -- to help restore the person to health (or, perhaps, to support the person in their journey towards death). To do that, the doctor must be able to be touched by the patient's life as well as his or her illness." -- Paul Root Wolpe, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
"The good doctor ... is always searching for, moving towards, and finding creative solutions in the moment at hand, able to hold both hope and failure simultaneously, being different things to different people and thereby meeting myriad needs." -- Valerie James, King's Fund, London.
