You are not just the rural patient’s doctor, you are the doctor for the football team, a friend, and perhaps a relative; you speak on health at local schools and are expected to attend fundraisers.
If a patient’s feelings become sources of resistance to treatment, clinicians need to know how to address these feelings’ influence on the therapeutic capacity of patient-clinician relationships.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):436-443. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.ecas3-1705.
The graphic novel Swallow Me Whole highlights the need for patient-centered care that engages not only patients but also extended family and the community.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(2):148-153. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.2.ecas3-1802.
Physician employment adds a practice management stakeholder to the patient-physician encounter, a stakeholder whose financial interests differ from those of physicians in solo or group practice.
Teleradiology can contribute to quality care when teleradiologists communicate and collaborate with referring physicians, have real-time access to patients’ medical records, and consult for hospitals that have error detection and correction systems in place.
Publicizing physician ordering information as a way of peer-pressuring hospital employees into cutting costs is likely to have unintended consequences.