A recent trip to the emergency room with my wife for an asthma attack has provided me with probably the best example you could ever have of the difference between health care professionals with a bedside manner and those that don't. The doctors and nurses in the ER were awesome to say the least. They showed genuine compassion and through humor helped ease the stress of what was a potentially life threatening situation. Even though the staff were keeping the mood light it was clear that they were taking the problem very seriously and that there was a lot of work going on in the background. I was so impressed and grateful that we had such a good team that night in the ER. At the time we were unaware of just how critical the problem was and it's not an exaggeration to say things could have easily ended up with my wife dying. The staff were quick to start treatment and did what they needed to to help get things under control all the while using humor and compassion to keep stress down, something that could easily exacerbate the asthma attack.
I was so grateful that the contrast to our experience came much later after my wife had stabilized. I will never, ever understand why it is someone that completely lacks any form of social skill becomes a doctor. I'm not talking in the purely academic sense of a degree but instead of the ones that choose to become a doctor that will interact with patients like the shrew of a woman that was a pulmonary "expert" that visited my wife. This doctor lacked any form of a bedside manner and was void of any sense of compassion. My wife's condition even dropped off a bit after our brief encounter with her. It makes me shudder to think of how things could have turned out had she been the initial doctor in the ER. Save a patient that is unconscious I can't think of another situation that would bring someone to the ER that wouldn't be made better by a doctor that has the ability to diffuse stress and anxiety and to show some basic compassion for what the patient is going through. I know it seems like something trivial but the ability of health care staff to diffuse a patient's stress is vital in the initial stages of critical care so that the problem isn't being made worse by something that doesn't need to be in the equation.
Doctors such as "shrew woman" don't do patients any favors by being in the health care system. A doctor's ability to heal their patient doesn't just come from their ability to regurgitate knowledge it also comes from their personality. A doctor can tell you all the "scientific" reasons you need a particular course of treatment but without a sense that your doctor cares it just isn't as effective and in some cases could even make matters worse. A treatment can't just be sold on the merits of it will work because x+y=z there also needs to be a doctors ability to convince their patient that they chose the treatment based on that patient as an individual and a belief that the doctor actually cares if they get better. Compassion is critical to patient care and doctors that lack that ability need to be doing work in a research field where they won't have any patient interaction. The blame doesn't just lie with these "soulless" doctors it also belongs with the educational institutions. Schools need to have much more stringent policies with regard to a student's ability to interact with others. At an early stage students that lack a "bedside" manner should be encouraged to move toward a field that doesn't involve patient interaction and if they choose to stay their current course then they should take mandatory classes in patient interaction. If at the end they still cannot provide good, not adequate, patient interaction they either move off to a non-patient care field or fail out of the program.
I am so grateful that things turned out the way they did and thank the staff that took such good care of my wife in the ER and later in the pulmonary ward. They are all so awesome at their jobs and were a prime example of how a balance between smarts and humanity make for a faster recovery. As for people like "shrew woman" they need to be in a research lab or locked in a room and used only as consultants on cases.
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