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What is a "Good" Patient?
Anonymous has written in a previous
thread regarding patients ideas regarding teaching ethics to medical students an interesting comment about what patients are looking for in their medical care and how they should or should not respond. Anonymous wrote:
"I read somewhere that patients try to prevent three things inherent in the healthcare system: depersonalization, loss of control and lack of knowledge. I would consider it normal and healthy for a patient to try to prevent these things from happening to them. But the behaviours they use to prevent this go against how a "good" patient is supposed to behave."
I thought it might be worthwhile to set up a new thread on a subject I haven't tackled before. On this blog, I have covered about what make up an
ideal doctor but I have never covered the issue of what is a "good" patient, either from the view of patients or from the view of the healthcare provider. So here is the chance to make your opinions known. How do you think a "good" patient should behave? ..Maurice.
2 Comments:
I think defining "good" patients is ethically ill-advised, because it lets the medical profession off the hook for the way they deal with patients that don't fit the profile. Medicine is, I am afraid, a service industry which means doctors don't (or shouldn't) get to provide different service based on personality.
Ideally of course patients would be honest about their symptoms and any relevant lifestyle behaviours, and either comply with their doctor's orders or be upfront about not doing so. However, until doctors respect their patients' privacy, do not belittle them, treat them with contempt or scorn for "bad" behaviour and actually work with them to find the most appropriate solution for the health ailment given the individual patient, the patient is not safe to behave in a way that is most conducive to them gettting the best care available to them. A huge part of being a good paitent is having a decent doctor.
I don't think virtue ethics can solve the delicate ponderings of doctor-patient relationships, because of the heterogeneity which thankfully constitutes society.
I think there is a difference between a "good patient" from a doctor's perspective, and a "good patient" in terms of a broader self-protecting ("liberal") angle.
Here's a (real) example:
Patient goes to see urologist, saying his urine is cloudy sometimes.
Doctor orders urine sample analysis, it comes out negative at the time of sampling. Doctor says nothing is wrong with patient.
Patient has access to a microbiology laboratory and looks under the microscope WHEN his urine is cloudy and discovers high number of neutrophils.
Now would this be a "good" patient from the specialist's perspective?
What about from a societal standpoint, in terms of the individual's health?
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