As a physician, I treat each patient’s visit as a critical time, a chance to connect. Four factors that I always observe: First, look at the patient in his eyes, (deep enough to note the color of his eyes) and acknowledge his presence. Second, let the patient feel your true presence as a physician. Third, listen attentively to the patient’s sufferings. Fourth, let him know that you, as a doctor, is there to help ease the pain. By doing these, they create better atmosphere and trust between patients and doctors. The patient would go home not feeling empty-handed. The visit was engaging. It would be a feeling of fulfillment in the part of the doctor as well. It helps reduce practice burn out. Remember, the doctor needs the patients as much as the patients need the doctor. That is our calling. As a physician, I would like to share more information and knowledge with my patients but I am so limited by time and many other factors.

Sixteen minutes of patient visit is not enough. The country and the world are getting sicker. What we are getting for treatments are only “bandaids” for the health problems we are dealing with. People are more ill with chronic diseases. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they are 75.” We have longer “disease span” than “health span”. Changing behavior is very important but you can not change behavior by seeing patients 16 minutes every 2-3 months. There are a lot of questions that our patients still have but were not able to ask. We, doctors, would like to stay longer with our patients during their visits and listen attentively to them. We really care but we have to adjust in these changing times. We need to see more patients in a short period of time. We need to pay the bills too, in order to survive and continue giving services to the community.

If chronic illnesses like, obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, dementia and cancer are highly associated with nutrition and unhealthy life style, then we should sit down and focus on these. But physicians are not paid talking about nutrition or lifestyle changes. You may be paid with small amount of money, if ever, on doing counseling but it would not be enough to pay the costs of your medical assistants, office rent, electricity, office supplies and malpractice insurance.

 

There are a lot of things to talk about, especially on how to improve your health. Health is very vital to your existence. Doctors are not just paid to diagnose and prescribe. We were trained to think well and even challenge the old concept of diseases if needed to. I agree, however, that there are some doctors that had been affected so much by the “evidence-based Medicine” and “algorithm” of the healthcare system that made them believe that they could not think independently for their patients.