Apart from being extremely humble, kind, and friendly, she was truly genuine. It was all in the little things she’d do. Like how she’d make the effort to ‘play’ with the children before examining them. Or how she’d always take the time to reassure guilt-wrenched mothers that just because their baby fell and got hurt, they weren’t being bad moms. With teenagers she was especially patient, showing them love and warmth that just amazed me.

All in all, a patient is someone who is coming in with a whole range of emotions, issues, and worries. They deserve to have a doctor who sees them not only on medical grounds, but on humanitarian grounds as well.

Some ideas to stimulate discussion…

In order for a patient to build trust with a physician, it may be true that the patient must believe the physician genuinely cares about them. However, it may not be the case that what the patient views is actually real.

I am sure there are money/prestige driven physicians who are great with people, and in particular, developing a sense of trust. At the same time, I am sure there are genuinely passionate physicians who lack the skills required to build strong trust from the patient.

My point being that it’s debatable how strong of a factor intentions play in determining how good you will be at making sure the patient “takes the pill”. It may very well be true that passionate physicians are inherently better at conveying their care, but I can’t say for sure.

It’s the same type of thing for when a medical school applicant walks into the interview room. You could be more passionate about medicine and taking care of others than anyone else in the world, but if you can’t communicate those ideas to the interviewers, they won’t be able to see it.

In the same way, skill and experience need to be developed by physicians in order to be able to build that sense of trust with their patients, so that they can ensure the proper care is received willingly.