What Does It Mean to Be a Good Doctor?

What Does It Mean to Be a Good Doctor?

4 years ago
Anonymous $9CO2RSACsf

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-good-doctor/

A few years ago, I was shadowing a neurologist at a hospital just down the road from my family home in Connecticut. It was a relatively slow day for the doctor, full of chart reviews and sifting through brain images for abnormalities. As she went about her paperwork, the neurologist shared her insights with me, especially when something “exciting” popped up. Even then, I remember finding it strange that the human body can be a medical educator—something to be studied, even marveled at.

I learned what an ischemic stroke looked like on a CT scan. I saw what electronic health records looked like across an assortment of patients and their health statuses, annotated by past and present health care providers. I read what doctors considered to be objective truths about their patients, truths including data points and test results that were worthy of being documented. I read the things that mattered to insurance companies and provided the doctors their paychecks. I saw a complicated system of documentation that put the medical record and physician reimbursement at the heart of “patient-centered” health care.