Blog Week 4

This last Friday in the clinic, I learned, what I felt, was the incorrect form of practicing medicine.  I stayed in for a couple of hours to help translate for a pulmonologist, who primarily saw patients suffering from diabetes and high cholesterol.  However, I had the impression that he was not very attentive or interactive with the patients and rudely made them wait in front of him while he finished with the other patient's files, which took him a couple of minutes and made some of the patients impatient.  When he started with the consult, the doctor made very little eye contact with the patients and basically talking to me so I can ask them.  Judging by the patient's body and facial expressions, they were not very pleased with that attitude or comfortable with his capabilities as a doctor.  In contrast, on past weeks, the doctors where talking directly to and making eye contact with the patients to make sure that they showed care for their well-being even though they could not understand what they were saying.  He seemed to not care for the individual person, but rather just saw them as another case that had to be solved.  I hope I am wrong about these perceptions about him because a doctor has to come across to the patient as a person who is not only willing to help physically, but also someone who is available to talk to about other problems or issues.  Looking back at past experiences, I see that when the doctors talk more to their patients, they get more comfortable with them.  This sometimes allows the doctor to dig into the patient's life to spot more problems that the patient was not aware of or had forgotten to mention, ultimately leading to a better doctor-patient relationship and the patient's well-being.