Teaching medical students to become "more caring" doctors

The idea is to embed students with patients:

To create more caring doctors, the trainee medics from Melbourne University will shadow patients as they sit in GP waiting rooms, visited specialists and recuperated at home.
Under the scheme, which mirrors a pilot program at Harvard Medical School in the US, partnering a patient with a chronic illness such as diabetes or arthritis will be a compulsory part of the student’s workload.
It will give the trainee doctor a complete view of the patient’s ride through the medical system, including in the home environment.

Comments

Anonymous
This is only a 1 or 2 day thing right, surely its not integrated coursework. What a waste of time and money. Med school costs 50k per year, and they want to charge you that for hanging out doing nothing all day?
If med schools are worried about their students not being compassionate, then they should do a better job SCREENING FOR APPLICANTS. You cant teach someone compassion in med school. Either they have it or they dont. If they dont, then your application process should be able to weed them out.
Essentially this tells me that med schools are being very lazy in their screening procedures
ipanema
You cant teach someone compassion in med school.Either they have it or they dont.
Very well said indeed. One can simply pretend just to pass.
Anonymous
Even if you are a caring individual, you won’t be after a few years of practicing in the real world and seeing asshole after asshole patient…noncompliant, abusive, litigious, demanding patinets like yourelves…
I love how whores like you think you can judge what it takes to be a doctor…
Anonymous
Christ, he is back. What is your problem, man? Who do you think you are to call someone a whore just for simply stating their opinion. You know, one day, you will get exactly what you deserve. I hope that day is soon.
Anonymous
Anon 9:57, you have one BIG problem. Why dont you blame your fat ass? You have nothing constructive to say? Why are you hiding?
You are a male whore yourself.
Anonymous
This program won’t do anything to increase the compassion of doctors; but if it’s done right, it might teach them other important things.
In the U.S., the med student might get to see the patient wrestling with error-ridden and incomprehensible medical bills, fighting with insurance companies, drowning in paperwork.
Not sure if they have these kinds of problems in Australia, though…
Carey
ipanema
There are many types of posters. It’s either one who have nothing good to say, one who finds fault in other people’s opinion or some who shares and learn other people’s opinion.
In the real world, they are more brave because you can identify them. Here, you can just raise your eyebrows on individuals like these. Expect this kind in the blogosphere.
If you’re a doctor,shame on you. If you’re a heckler, i think it made your day. If you’re both, more shame on you. Why don’t you come out in the hiding? I think you will really be red-faced.
Anonymous
Impanema, Don’t pay any attention to this guy. He is a mental and everyone knows it. It has been so nice with him gone for awhile. He calls everyone either a whore, (concubine) or a sodomite. He has very limited vocabulary and even more limited intelligence. Most of us try to ignore him.
ipanema
thanks Anon 11:54
Anonymous
What a pile of crap! If you want compassion, hire a lawyer.
Anonymous
this guy is a shame to his profession.
getting angry is a sign of MENTAL ILLNESS according to recent study.
Anonymous
I know you guys hate crazy doctor, but do you ever wonder why he says those things? It is because he is in a system that is broken. He is most likely forced to do things for free, or jump through so many hoops just to pay his bills. Have you seen what United does to the doctors they contract with? United acts as the patient’s financial representative and then actively tries to steal from doctors. Wouldn’t you be made if someone walked by your house and stole your bike? How is it any different.
My wife noticed that everytime we socialize with another doctor they start to complain about something, but out other friends never seem to do that. There are two conclusions to that observation; 1) Doctors have unrealistic expectations and complain too much or 2)Doctors have gotten a raw deal. I favor the later. And crazy man is the blogosphere’s incarnation of that malaise and anger.
Joe in Australia
“Med school costs 50k per year, and they want to charge you that for hanging out doing nothing all day?”
Med school might cost that much in the USA. I know the original post didn’t make this clear, but the program is in Melbourne, Australia, not Melbourne, Florida. I don’t know if there is a university in Melbourne, FLorida, but that’s the only way I can understand your reaction.
Here in Australia medical school is free. Actually, if you’re poor you get paid to attend. You do get slugged with a government levied “contribution scheme” once you start earning serious money, but it’s nothing like $50,000 a year.
Anyway.
The University of Melbourne and its medical school are very well regarded. I don’t know for a fact that this program will deliver better doctors, but I’ve been very happy with Australia’s medical system.
Gasman
It’s not so much about teaching compassion. Even compassionate people can be quite clueless about what it takes to actually be a patient. People entering medical education tend to be young and compared to their patients, extremely healthy. Most have never had any serious contact with the health care system as a patient. This activity comes down to the addage about walking a mile in a mans shoes in order to really begin to know the man. Each student will have only one or a small number of patients to shadow, but when they sit down with each other and share experience and observations they will understand commonalities of patient experience.
Such a program would have provided in a few weeks insite that has taken me over a decade to realize. This insite still has not come from my work but from family members who have had to deal with the system of which I am a cog.
ipanema
I know you guys hate crazy doctor, but do you ever wonder why he says those things? It is because he is in a system that is broken. He is most likely forced to do things for free, or jump through so many hoops just to pay his bills.
So, he’s a doctor. Well, I take it as attitude problem. Certainly he’s enjoying venting his frustration in here. Or who knows, he’s just playing with people’s feelings. Either way, no one likes his ill manners. If I’m in a broken system, it’s either I’ll opt out or bear with it.
Yes Joe, University of Melbourne is highly regarded, especially in the field of medicine. Is free education for locals only? International students do still pay, I know some. But others were able to avail of scholarships.
Anonymous
I doubt this program would make a doctor more compassionate, but it would make them more aware of the difficulties patients have getting medical care: long office waits, insurance woes, not always understanding what the doctor is saying, not fully understanding the purpose of a treatment, test or drug, or having to deal with confusing or lost paperwork. I know doctors deal with many of these same issues, but from a different perspective.
I don’t see why a medical student would have to shadow more than 2 or 3 patients. That alone would give them plenty of perspective on what it’s like to be a person with a serious and/or chronic illness.
Anonymous
If some of you are trying to rationalize this guy’s resons for attacking and calling people names like (whore) then you’re almost as bad as he is. It has nothing to do with stress. It has to do with mental illness, an abusive nature, misplaced anger, etc….There is no excuse for him to come to someone else’s BLOG and display such immature behavior.
You do know that cops and proscutors can get orders to track people from their IP numbers?
It’s time someone take some action against this guy and get him away from patients. He is not fit to be a practicing physician.
Anonymous
I’m not defending crazy doctor. (and you don’t know me, so really it is difficult for you to say “you’re as bad as he is”). what I’m trying to display is a system that has made an initially intelligent caring person into somewhat with so much vitriol and rage.
When you hear about black teenagers shooting each other do you place 100% of the blame on them? Is it possible that the culture of violence/misogyny/poverty played a role? The real world is shades of gray.
Open your mind a little bit and realize that crazy doctor is probably very similar to you, but he has been placed in an impossible situation. The reason he writes here is probably because there is no other outlet for him that is anonymous. I honestly hope that he can find work that is satisfying for him and continue to provide for himself and family. I hope you wish him the same. If you don’t “you’re as bad as he is”
Lastly, I doubt the thought police are going to supbeona Kevin’s ISP for crazy docs IP address. What crime has he committed? When did it become wrong to state an unpopular opinion?
b
Anonymous
“The University of Melbourne and its medical school are very well regarded. I don’t know for a fact that this program will deliver better doctors, but I’ve been very happy with Australia’s medical system.”
Actually, Australia’s medical system is having serious problems. REcent study showed that most aussie med students dont know jack about anatomy or biochemistry.
Nice to see that the aussie med students are getting plenty of “training” in compassion. Its amazing to me they have enough time to learn “compassion” but dont have enough time to properly learn the innervation of the brachial plexus.
Sounds to me like aussie med students are better trained to be social workers than doctors. Doctors do in fact need to learn human anatomy.
If you want doctors to be more compassionate or “feel patients pain” then have them shadow patients as a PREREQUISITE TO MED SCHOOL. Dont waste their time once they are in school. They have plenty of other material to learn that is more important, and actually possible to teach someone.
Anonymous
b, Last I heard slander was still against the law. Your being exactly what this person doesn’t need. Coming up with a thousand reasons to make excuses and justify his behavior.
When a man beats on his wife and children do we excuse him for it because he may have a stressful job so therefore he has a right too such behavior?
This guy likes being the way he is. He knows exactly what he is doing. He does it simply because he can. Now if he were to walk into a shopping center and start calling women “whores” for no reason, he knows he would never get away with it. He has found his safety here on the internet where he believes it is accepted behavior. But guess what, all these people he abuses here are the same ones that go to shopping malls, with the same feelings and emotions.
Stop enabling this guy!
Anonymous
Anon 1:48, if you are from the Asia-Pacific region, Melbourne University’s Faculty of Medicine is highly regarded. Perhaps those who dont know about anatomy belong to other universities.
Anonymous
You are still missing my point.
I hope you continue to read and think about things that only reinforce what you previously believed. Thats a great way to grow.
b
ipanema
Anon 1:33 or b,
Can you imagine a doctor acting that way? I feel disgust since I’ve hold doctors with high esteem but that one should be kept in a mental asylum. Why dont you tell him to open his mind a bit. And this is not a place to vent out frustration. The freeway is better.
He may be free to type anonymously but I hope he won’t be complacent enough, it’s easy to have him track down.
Of course, the topic is on compassion, he doesnt have one. Even if I let him read legal liability issues, I doubt he’ll take it by heart.
Joe in Australia
As I understand it, if you’re a permanent resident of Australia you get a certain amount of credit towards undergraduate education. This pays some large percentage of the cost of your course – 75%? You get another amount of credit for postgraduate education. At present medical school here counts as an undergraduate course, but the University of Melbourne plans to change that.
Both of these credit allowances are indexed to inflation and must be paid back once you’re earning a reasonable income. It’s a pretty sweet deal, but it’s not really on-topic for this blog.
ipanema
thanks, i know. just curious with your info.
Anonymous
Hey b this is OT but when does fellowship begin?
Anonymous
Thanks for asking. I suppose I post about that too much here. I find out next week where I go for July 2007. I made the mistake of telling my evil boss what I planned to do and he told me I couldn’t see anymore new patients. Since I am on commission only that was akin to him firing me. So I “quit” and got a job as a hospitalist for this last year. It felt a little crazy to quit a job for a fellowship I don’t really have yet, but the primary care is slowly killing.
Much like Tom Sawyer at his own funeral, it has actually been rather heartfelt telling some of the people I previously thought were buck-crazy that I was leaving. Then they suprise me and we have a tender moment.
I also made the unbalanced decision to buy the hematology self assessment test so I could spend the next year studying. I heard heme was the harder board to pass.
Did you interview for next year or are you starting this year?
b
Paul A. Hoadley
“Here in Australia medical school is free.“
I was going to claim that your statement isn’t entirely true, but I can’t think of a way in which it’s even partially true, as you admit a couple of sentences later:
“You do get slugged with a government levied “contribution scheme” once you start earning serious money, but it’s nothing like $50,000 a year.“
I guess there’s a partial truth: it certainly isn’t $50,000 per year. It’s currently (at most) just over $8,000. The contributions are levied every year of study (that is, six years for an undergraduate), and it’s the repayments which can be deferred until the student’s income reaches some nominal amount. Currently, that’s a little over $36,000 per year, which doesn’t, in my opinion, come near qualifying as “serious money”.
Anyway, to get back on topic: medical students are already required to tag along with nurses, midwives, various paramedicals and ambulance crews. This program sounds like yet another enormous waste of time.
Bijoux
the best way to deal with weird posters is to ignore them. Back to task here..doctors and nurses who have compassion (and there are some!~) have either never lost it through medical school OR they had some amazing role models. I have a phobia of medical procedures and I have to meet with the doctor or nurse ahead of time to discuss how to deal with keeping my stress level down so i don’t have an adverse reaction during the procedure which nobody wants. Within 2 minutes of talking with people I can tell if they have any ability to work outside the box. If they see the importance of colaborating with the patient to get the best outcome…they actually might be a great doctor!
I asked one guy once how he got to be so kind when he was fresh out of medical school…he said in medical school there are “dummy patients” in a semester program who are hired to give residents direct feedback on their bedside manner. He said he learned alot obout making eye contact, sitting and really listening and taking notes and reading back what he heard.
I wish they all had this devotion!