Shaking the hubris of the profession

My friend Danny Sands writes a remarkable story about a recent medical problem he faced. It's called "On The Ultimate Loss of Control, Living with Uncertainty, Reflecting on the Future, and Being a Patient."  It is beautifully written and worth a look.

I have been struck by a number of similar types of stories recently in which doctors have become patients or have been with close families members in that situation.  I think it is a wonderful thing that physicians now feel comfortable relating such experiences.  The common theme is one of shock and a new understanding of what it is like to be a "customer" in the health care system, especially when the episode involves an error or near-miss that is made in your treatment.  Here is a "minor" example in Danny's case: 

Because of the uncertainty of the diagnosis, I was prescribed atorvastatin to lower my LDL cholesterol and risk of future strokes. When I asked if they measured it in the hospital, I was told it was 107 (which is rather low already) so I politely declined. Besides, the imaging showed no evidence of plaque in my carotid arteries, my blood pressure was low, and I had no family history of cerebrovascular disease or coronary artery disease.

But--and I mean this with great affection for my colleagues who have written, in that I view them as among the best of their profession--isn't it a sign of the hubris of our profession that these doctors do feel the shock they write about?  After all, they have spent years in training and practice and treated thousands of patients.  In other fields of endeavor, the most important part of being and staying in business is to understand the needs of the customers.  The most successful firms, indeed, are driven by the needs of their customers.

In contrast, look at what Ashish Jha noted after a recent injury brought him to the emergency room:

The biggest lesson for me was that this was not an extraordinary story at all.  When I told my story to colleagues the next day, no one was surprised. We accept that when we walk into a hospital, we give up being people and become patients.  We stop receiving care, the way I did on the bike path.  Instead, we receive services. And when you are in pain, the difference between care and services is stark.

This is why I implore the medical profession to move to the idea of patient-driven care.   

As I have said at some recent conferences, patient-driven care does not mean foregoing the expertise, judgement and experience of clinicians.  Nor does it suggest the abdication of their clinical responsibilities. But we must go beyond patient-centered care, in which the doctors and nurses decide what is best for the patient.  Patient-driven care, in contrast, is based on a partnership between the provider and the customer.

And one thing more, returning again to Ashish's story:

Now that we are measuring patient experience and ER wait times as quality measures, I wondered how Falmouth hospital did.  Out of curiosity, I looked up its ratings. They are fine.  Average. This is not an outlier hospital. My experience was not an outlier experience. And that is the biggest disappointment of all.

I often say, "There is no virtue in benchmarking yourself to a substandard norm." Hospitals have come to accept that a "normal" level of (even just) patient-centered care is acceptable.  It is not.

I am pleased to see the hubris of my doctor friends being shaken by their personal experiences.