Doctor-Patient Relationship: The impact of Mindfulness on Empathy

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. s774-s774
Author(s):  
S. Darbeda ◽  
M. Etchevers
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Compassionate Care ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
The Impact

Introduction..The doctor-patient relationship has an increasingly important place in medical studies. Empathy is one of the quality criteria of the relationship. The development of mindfulness in medical schools is booming.ObjectivesTo investigate the relation between empathy and mindfulness among residents and doctors.Methods.Doctors and residents were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire – questions on their personal development practices – and two scales. The Mindful Awareness Warning Scale (MAAS) is a unidimensional scale measuring attention and mindfulness and Jefferson Physician Empathy Scale (JSPE) is a scale measuring the clinical empathy across 3 dimensions: “perspective taking”, “compassionate care” and “in the patient's shoes”. Multivariate linear regressions were performed to analyse the correlation between each score of JSPE and explanatory variables.Results.One hundred ninety-three questionnaires were analyzed: 87% were general practitioners, the average age was 34 years old (SD 11) and 69% were women. Regarding personal development practices, 18% practised mindfulness meditation regularly or occasionally (23% for yoga and 31% for relaxation). No correlation between the scores of JSPE and the MAAS score was found. However, doctors who practiced mindfulness had a highest score of “compassionate care” (95% CI [1.26; 4.91], P = 0.0012).Conclusions.The mindfulness would be an effective tool for the development of the welfare of the doctors, and improving the quality of empathy and therapeutic efficacy. To support these data, it would be interesting to conduct an interventional study by offering French doctors and interns the possibility of following courses of mindfulness.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Doctor-Patient Relationship: The Difficult Balance between Patient Psychology and Community Sociology

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Jose Luis Turabian
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Interpersonal Relationship ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Usual Model ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
Object Of Study

Psychology and sociology share a common object of study, human behaviour, but from different perspectives. Sociologists have focused on macro variables, such as social structure, education, gender, age, race, etc., while psychology has focused on micro variables such as individual personality and behaviours, beliefs, empathy, listening, etc. Despite the importance of interpersonal relationship skills, they depend on the community or social context in which communication takes place, and by themselves may have little relevance in the consultation. The purely psychological analysis of the doctor-patient relationship often leads to an idyllic vision, with the patient-centred consultation as the greatest exponent, which rarely occurs in real life. The purely sociological or community / social analysis of the doctor-patient relationship leads to a negative view of the consultation, which is always shown as problematic. But, the psychological system in the doctor-patient relationship cannot be neglected, and its study is of importance, at least as an intermediate mechanism that is created through socio-community relations. Although the same social causes are behind the doctor-patient relationship, when acting on psychological factors in the consultation, they act as an optical prism scattering socio-community relations that affect the doctor and the patient, giving rise to a beam of different colors of doctor-patient relationship. In doctor-patient relationship there is a modality of psychotherapy, where attitudes, thoughts and behaviour of the patient, can be change, as well as it can be extended on the way of understanding and therefore changing, his social context. Because of the distance between socio-community relations and the form of doctor-patient relations is growing in complex societies, under these conditions, the sociological factor gives the important place to the psychological factor. Given these difficulties of the doctor-patient relationship one may ask how general medical practice can persist with the usual model of doctor-patient relationship. Pain and the desire to relieve them are the basic reasons for the patient and the doctor, and they do not disappear due to the contradictions of the doctor-patient relationship. In this way, the confrontation between sociological and psychological vision is replaced by an alliance of both currents, and each of them takes on meaning only in the general vision.

The unexpected challenges for a doctor in the remote operational military environment

2017 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-174
Author(s):  
C S Swain
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Medical Confidentiality ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe enclosed environment of a warship amplifies many recognised issues within medical practice, such as medical confidentiality, the conflicts within the doctor-patient relationship, and the impact of social interaction with patients, reflection on which can lead to adaptations in personal working practices within the military setting. Initial concerns about those deploying early on in their career may focus on medical knowledge and ability, but it is important to be aware of the unforeseen, multi-factorial, psychosocial and logistical challenges which are more likely to surface in the remote military environment.

Protagonist-patient and servant-doctor: A medicine for the sick doctor-patient relationship

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S683-S683 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Ferraz ◽  
A. Guedes
Keyword(s):  
Current Model ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Patient Relations ◽  
Emergency Assistance ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Human Care ◽  
Physician Patient ◽  
The Relationship

The doctor-patient relationship (DPR) is very ill; it is in need of emergency assistance. Although there have been change in this relationship, no current model is satisfying. In 1972, Robert Veatch defined some models of DPR. Likewise, Pierloot, in 1983, and Balint, in 1975 and ultimately, Mead and Bower, 2000 with the model of Person-center-care (PCC) medicine.ObjectiveEvaluate the different kinds of DPR described in the literature and propose an abduction-based model of the Servant DPR, in which patients are protagonists in their treatment.MethodsPubmed literature review of the last forty years with the keyword ‘physician-patient relations’.DiscussionWhile nursing care advanced in its professional efficacy through Watson's human care and through the leader servant model, the DPR models demonstrated that the doctors are lost in their posture, even feeling as abused heroes. Models that include the patient in decision-making and that value the patient as a person (PCC) promise a revolution in the medical realm. Nevertheless, the PCC model is not enough to heal the DPR itself, because the role of the doctor must be changed to adapt to the relationship, otherwise, the PCC by itself can increase the burden upon the doctor. Doctors with a role of remunerated servant (not slave), like any other professional who delivers a service with excellence, focusing in the main actor, the patient, can heal the DPR.ConclusionThe Servant DPR gives a positive counter transference, increasing the doctor's motivation and giving him back the sense of purpose in medicine, increasing the health system's effectiveness.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

scholarly journals The Concept of Minimalist Interventions in General Medicine: Minimum Means, Maximum Effect

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-06
Author(s):  
Jose Luis Turabian
Keyword(s):  
General Practitioner ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
General Medicine ◽  
Medical Intervention ◽  
Maximum Effect ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
The Impact

Practical work requires deepening in the theory. In this way, the intention of this article is to systematize the concept of "minimal interventions", as well as draw attention to the impact that this type of interventions of the general practitioner can have on the patient, however small and insignificant, their action may seem. The doctor-patient relationship creates contexts that act, in one way or another, on the patient. There is no absence of medical intervention, even when there is no conscious intervention of the doctor on the patient. Non-intervention is a type of intervention. Non-intervention is a bio-fiction. The different types of doctor-patient relationship give rise, naturally, perhaps imperceptibly, to different models of educational intervention. In this scenario, a conceptualization and systematization of the "micro-interventions" in general medicine is presented: minimal, imperceptible, briefs, low cost, zen, human size, opportunistic, small and mild, but continuous interventions. These micro-interventions are cost-effective no matter how small and insignificant their action seems. These minimal interventions of the general practitioner are of great importance and constitute an updated form of the "less is more" rationalist, they express the power of the minimum gesture in general / family medicine, and can transform health / disease on a large scale. In this way we can hypothesize a plausible relationship between the minimal but concentrated and powerful means, that is to say "contextualized", and the intensity of the effect in general medicine. The clarity of the reading of a message depends on the appreciation of the context; what counts is not what, but how. The context highlights or "pulls" the message. Many small people, in small places, doing small things, can change the world.

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