Doctor Priorities vs. Patient Priorities

An essay by Danielle Ofri MD highlights some key challenges to modern healthcare that fall under the category: narrowing the gap between ideal care and the care that patients actually receive.

While we tend to focus on breakdowns in the healthcare system or on physicians who are not doing an ideal job, part of the gap can be attributed to the challenges patients face when trying to fit ideal diagnostics and therapeutics into the everyday life.

Dr. Ofri opens with her feelings about a knowledgeable patient with diabetes who chooses not to act on that knowledge in healthy ways: "How can a patient completely ignore a disease for so long? How can a life-threatening illness just disappear from someone’s consciousness?"

The crux of the problem is "that doctors and patients have contrasting agendas." Ofri explains, "The challenge that lay ahead of us was to help each other adjust the angles of our respective lenses so that our visions could come into common focus."

That progress depended on time-consuming discussions, during which Dr. Ofri and her patient could compromise on shared goals and on how to achieve those goals 

Dr. Ofri realized she needed to modify her priorities and redefine success. Her reward was being "reminded how much more intriguing and challenging medicine is when we have the opportunity to delve in deep with a patient."

Take a moment to read her jarring concluding comments about “quality measures” scorecards in this case.