4-1 Discussion PSY 225

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Southern New Hampshire University *

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Health Science

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Apr 29, 2024

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A positive patient-physician relationship is important to a patient’s general health and is a key component in the delivery of high-quality healthcare. This relationship can be positively associated with adherence to lifestyle modifications, including compliance with a medical regimen and medication compliance. This positivity can be substantial given that approximately 40% of deaths are caused by behavior that could be modified, including physical inactivity, poor diet, poor strategies for coping with stress, and substance abuse. There are many qualities and characteristics that patients look for when choosing a physician and ultimately developing a good relationship with them. These include empathy, trust, respect, communication, listening, availability, compassion, honesty, benevolence, competence, knowledge, sincerity, integrity, reliability, and understanding (Grant, 2009). Qualities and characteristics that can detract from a positive patient-physician relationship are a physician’s inattention to the patient’s complaint, disrespect for the patient’s time, ignoring the patient’s questions, lack of communication, lack of empathy, unusual patient expectations, creating fear and anxiety in the patient, unprofessional behavior by the physician, cultural differences, and disregard for the patient’s autonomy (Keshavarzi et al., 2022). I believe that empathy is one of the most important traits when developing a positive patient-physician relationship because a good physician cares about the well-being and feelings of the patient. Another top quality would be the physician’s ability to gain the trust of the patient, which develops because of many of the aforementioned characteristics. A positive patient-physician relationship influences my satisfaction with the medical care I receive because if I have empathy and trust in a physician, I feel more satisfied and feel like I have a relationship that is going to offer continued support. In my personal experience, I’ve had both great patient-physician relationships, as well as relationships that were absolutely lacking. The best and most positive relationships I’ve had with physicians have been with those who have listened to me when talking because they know that I know my body and mind better than anyone else, have communicated compassion and empathy, and have offered to work with me to find solutions. Some of the worst patient-physician relationships I have had were because I felt like I was being dismissed, wasn’t listened to, or wasn’t taken seriously, which ultimately harmed me. For example, I was very sick from 1994 through most of 1997 with horrible abdominal pain that actually felt like it was in my chest. I went to the emergency room numerous times only to be sent home and told that I either had anxiety or an ulcer that they could not see. Finally, in 1997, approximately 4 weeks after giving birth to my third child, I bypassed the emergency room completely and went to a family medicine physician that I had never seen before. He listened to me and took me seriously with that very first visit, told me he knew what was wrong with me, and sent me to the hospital to be directly admitted. I was diagnosed with severe gallbladder disease and had my gallbladder removed the very next morning, which ended up being an extremely difficult operation because by that time, my gallbladder was elongated and eroding and it was very difficult to remove in one piece. What should have taken 45 minutes took over 4 hours and I almost died on the operating room table. After that surgery, even though I had postoperative pain, I never again had the severe pain and other symptoms that I had for 3 years prior. No one else had bothered to listen to everything I told them, put all the symptoms together, or bothered to even check to see if something was wrong in that area. I will forever be thankful to that physician and if I didn’t live in a completely different state now, he would still be my primary care. References:

Grant, S. B. (2009, March 1). Are there blueprints for building a strong patient-physician relationship? . Journal of Ethics | American Medical Association. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/are-there-blueprints-building-strong-patient- physician-relationship/2009-03 Keshavarzi, M. H., Safaie, S., Faghihi, S. A. A., & Zare, S. (2022, July). Barriers of physician- patient relationships in professionalism: A qualitative study . Journal of advances in medical education & professionalism. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9309164/

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