In Episode 22 I talked with Dr. Karen Leitner, of Karen Leitner MD Coaching about why doctors are sometimes dissatisfied with how practicing medicine feels today. Moral injury, a term coined after the Vietnam War, describes how someone feels when they're asked to do something that's against their moral code, and this is how physicians feel sometimes. Being asked (or told!) to hurry up with patients and bill as much as you can is NOT why physicians went into this in the first place - we want to help people and to forward understanding of health. All is not lost for physicians - Dr. Leitner has some great advice about how to keep healing thyself while healing others. You can learn more about what she does on her website.
This all got me thinking more about one part of the doctor-patient relationship in particular: trust. In Episode 23 I did a deeper dive on this topic. I believe strongly that better health is likely to be achieved when the doctor patient bond is strong, and that requires trust. But how to achieve that in a system that does not want you to have much time with your doctor? And how to achieve that when doctors change practices frequently and sometimes leave medicine altogether? There are some things about this that you as a patient simply cannot change. But there are some things in your control. How you approach, communicate with and behave with your doctor will affect how much trust you have for them, and likely how they treat you back. In that episode I mention a table of survey questions researchers asked patients about their doctors, and that is below.
