How to be a Great Physician
Dr. Timothy Trask wrote the following about being a great physician:
What qualities in a person do you think make for the best
physicians?
I believe the most critical characteristics a physician needs are a sense of
duty and committment to the patient first and patient always. Being a
doctor is stressful enough with all of the regulatory requirements, long
hours, demanding schedules and patients, threat of litigation, and the need
to keep current on an inordinate amount of information that continues to
grow. If a physician can't honesty say, feel, and act in the best interest
of patients always, then I feel the above demands will overwhelm them and in
short time will be ineffective, abrupt, cynical, and will lose the trust and
confidence of his/her patients. It is a downward spiral that I have
witnessed in physicians and is not pretty.
In order to achieve this, I believe a physician and a student in training
needs to be empathetic, compassionate, honest in all interactions (no matter
how difficult), resolute in their wanting to heal (as well as to possibly
cure), patient, optimistic, approachable, inquisitive, proactive, flexible,
introspective and willing to self-criticize, an excellent listener, a team
player, and self-confident.
Also, what traits in a person do you think the medical community
could do without?
This one is easy:
-arrogance (no, the doctor is not always right and is not justified to demean others)
-lack of understanding/empathy (patients have their own set of values and agendas for how they can be healed)
-impatience (you can't get everything you want, anyway, or anytime you want)
-transference of all the ills of the delivery of healthcare on an individual patient
-greed (being well compensated is great, but if you can't deliver quality
care or charge too much and therefore restrict access to you, you are just a
business person at best)
-inability to recognize your own limitations and biases or care to change them if necessary
-not following through on commitments to your patients (if you say you'll do something, you
better do it, and not just say it to appease the patient temporarily...this is a biggy; patient's
will sense your duplicity and you will immediately lose any influence with them. I find this to be
the biggest reason why patients despise certain physicians)
-not being a team player with other physicians and especially nurses
-not being honest
-laziness
