Annals of family medicine
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Annals of family medicine · Mar 2009
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyInfluence of watchful waiting on satisfaction and anxiety among patients seeking care for unexplained complaints.
We undertook a study to determine whether test-ordering strategy and other consultation-related factors influence satisfaction with and anxiety after a consultation among patients seeking care for unexplained complaints. ⋯ Test-ordering strategy does not influence patients' satisfaction with and anxiety after a consultation. Instead, specific aspects of physician-patient communication are important. Apparently, primary care physicians underestimate how much they can contribute to the well-being of their patients by discussing their worries.
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Annals of family medicine · Mar 2009
Suffering, meaning, and healing: challenges of contemporary medicine.
This essay explores the thesis that changes in contemporary society have transformed the work of doctoring and challenge doctors to be physician-healers. Medical advances in the prevention and management of acute disease have wrought a growing population of chronically ill patients whose care obliges physicians to become holistic healers. Holistic healing involves the transcendence of suffering. ⋯ Physician-healers use the power of the doctor-patient relationship to help patients discover or create new illness narratives with fresh meanings that reconnect them to the world and to others and thereby transcend suffering and experience healing. Physician-healers equipped with the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to assist patients to transcend suffering are indispensable if contemporary medicine is to maintain its tradition as a healing profession. In the process, physicians may discover meaningful connections with patients that bring new and refreshing perspectives to their work.