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By Newsandexperts.com
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Today’s consumers are demanding; expecting choice, variety, quality of product and unequalled service. If a waiter does a poor job, it is rewarded with a small tip.
Unprofessional day care providers are dismissed for a child’s safety. So why is it that when it comes to healthcare – easily one of the most important things in life – patients seem willing to tolerate substandard service which would be unacceptable elsewhere?
From the moment people walk into their doctor’s office, they immediately play a subservient role. The American Medical Association says that each patient waits an average of 20 minutes before their physician sees them. Once in their presence, the average doctor – specialized or not – spends just seven minutes in total with the patient and only allows a mere 18 seconds to explain the symptoms before they interrupt.
If treated that way by any other professional – a lawyer, mortgage broker, or accountant – consumers would stand up and leave the office vowing to find a new person to fulfill that particular role before the end of day.
But when it comes to healthcare, why is it almost expected and accepted that the person relied upon to spot cancer before it spreads, to note an early indication of heart disease or diagnose the onset of diabetes will have a bad attitude and just look at the patient as a bunch of words or numbers on a chart and not as a human being in need?
“Medicine is a service profession,” said Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, author of the book “Sacred Trust: The Ten Rules of Life, Death and Medicine.” “It should be a humbling experience to have the chance to be a physician – not a passport to arrogance.”
“I’ve spent my entire adult life as a physician,” she pointed out, “and I hate to say it but we have far too many jerks in medicine who should have chosen a different line of work.”
Those strong words are coming from someone in the medical profession, which is usually associated with joining-ranks and accepting little to no criticism.
“Many patients feel they have no power in a doctor’s office,” said Hollenbeck, “but in fact they hold all the power. They are employing the doctor, and have every right to, in effect, fire them if they are not satisfied with the service being provided.”
With the population’s life-expectancy increasing and the dramatic rise in health issues like heart-disease, diabetes and obesity showing no sign of abating, it is inevitable that the average person – or a close family member of theirs – will one day be reliant upon the skill, dedication and competence of a medical professional.
When entering the examining room, Hollenbeck reminds those in need of treatment that “any kind of doctor, from a family physician to a subspecialist, works for the patient as well as with them.”
Hollenbeck’s believes patient empowerment can be the key in opening the lines of communication in the examination room, thereby, leading to a higher quality of healthcare.
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