anthropology assignment

Western biomedicine is centered on scientific, hard-proven facts. Unfortunately, due to this Western medicine has become less focused on the patients and more focused on the science of disease. I have seen this first hand, both as an individual receiving care and as a nursing student from interactions between my patients and their physicians.

I recently went to my primary care provider because I had a cold that was continuing to get worse after a week of taking over-the-counter medications. When I went to the doctor’s office to seek help, the first thing that happened was that my vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, respirations, and oxygen saturation) were recorded by a medical assistant and then I was left in silence to wait and wait until my doctor could see me.  When my doctor, whom I have only met once before, finally came into the room there was no introduction. She asked me basic questions that most physicians ask such as “What symptoms are you having?”, “Did you have a flu shot this year?”, and “What medications were you taking at home?”. Then without telling me what she was going to do first, the doctor starts her physical assessment by poking around my face and neck and listening to breath sounds with her stethoscope. Then she sits back on her chair, tells me that she believes I have pneumonia, and quickly writes me a couple prescriptions. When I noticed that one of the medications she had written for me was one that I did not like to take in the past as I had some side effects to it I did not like, I spoke up and stated this to her and how I would like to be on another medication of the same class instead. However, the doctor just brushed off my concern and told me the side effect was normal and that she knew my insurance company covers the medication that she wrote out. After that she walked out and my appointment was over. There was no talk about a follow-up or if there was anything I should be concerned about. My visit was simple- diagnose and treat. It was not individualized to me and my concerns were not met.

While this experience is not always true, it unfortunately happens often in the Western medical society. Patients do not always get to say how they feel about their situation and they do not always have their feelings understood. The article this week about patient satisfaction really highlights the fact that Western medicine needs to refocus on the patient. It talks about how health care professionals go right in to diagnosis and treating disease without taking into account the patient’s thoughts and feelings.  I was really hit by the part that talked about the woman who was in a critical care unit and was trying to keep herself covered when the medical team was leaving her uncovered between procedures. Sadly, this made the patient feel like she did not have her dignity. This is very sad because it makes the person dislike the medical society and then they do not feel like they are being “cared” for.

I think that the medical culture should change how it handles people’s bodies and health. I think care providers need to remember that patient care should be centered on the patient. They should still ask their diagnostic question and do a physical assessment, but they should also take time to find out how the patient feels about the illness and the patient should be included in the decisions about his or her care. I feel like if patients are included in their care and feel understood, they could have better outcomes. This is seen in the novel “The Scalpel and the Silver Bear”, when Dr. Alvord says that her patients had a better outcomes and handled surgery better if they felt like they were understood by the physician. I think that the patient must be the center of care.