Dr Art Walaszek joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Drs William Smith and David Elkin: “How to Draw on Narrative to Mitigate Ageism.”
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.
The social-justice question we must pose to physicians is: Are you willing to advocate for changes to the medical system that creates the need for you to take on charity care in the first place?
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.