What Is the Ideal Doctor-Patient Relationship
The late national master of medicine Professor He Puren once said that he had four teachers, one of whom was his patients. Over these years I have deeply felt the truth of his words. My patients and their families are close to me without any barrier; I have learned a great deal from them. It is no exaggeration to say that even my medical skill owes something to them. Some of the proven formulas I use in treating certain patients were originally found by patients elsewhere, and I have put them to clinical effect.
I love medicine, and I am very fond of the patients who truly trust me and their families. Year after year of communicating with them, I have come to know their sorrows and joys intimately, and to care for the health of them and their relatives at all times. Once this bond is formed, it is unbreakable. To this day I have never had any conflict with a patient I truly treat; I am firmly convinced they would never become medical-dispersers making trouble for me.
One day I saw in the news that Academician Zhong Nanshan said that when a doctor throws himself wholeheartedly into medicine, considers the patient, and genuinely solves their problems, no patient or family member will truly be unreasonable. A doctor who truly practises with the aim of saving the dying and healing the wounded will win the respect and affection of patients and their families.
I believe the great majority of doctors, from the bottom of their hearts, wish to be such a doctor. The starting point of their medical study is compassion for the vulnerable group of the sick, or because someone close to them belongs to that group; they sincerely hope that, after mastering the art, they can help patients escape the misery of disease. But as public morals decline, many doctors have been forced onto a path that betrays their original intention.
The struggle of medical workers between their own survival and their saving-the-world feelings is something outsiders cannot fathom. But I believe that once patients trust and respect their doctors, the doctor's heart is greatly encouraged, and from within he will bring the best treatment plan and the best skill he possesses to bear on the patient's suffering.
The worst possible doctor-patient relationship is when the doctor does not trust the patient and the patient does not trust the doctor. Such a relationship inevitably makes the doctor, in treating, tremble with fear, constantly considering his own personal safety, and treating for no credit, only to avoid blame. For the patient this is the greatest loss; for the doctor it is the greatest sorrow, because what he can do and what he dreamed of in his career are forced to run in opposite directions.