12/21/98
'PATCH ADAMS' MOVIE UNDERSCORES VALUE OF DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP
EAST LANSING, Mich. - "Patch Adams," the soon-to-be-released movie in which Robin Williams plays an idealistic medical student, underscores a medical truth that is sometimes forgotten in today's world: The relationship between doctor and patient plays a critical role in the healing of the patient.
For Ruth Hoppe, associate dean of Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine, that relationship can be summed up in one word: Trust.
"Medical care has built-in uncertainty to it, and one way we cope with the irreducible uncertainty is through trust," she says. "Trust is crucial for patients to be able to deal with the uncertainty."
In addition to building good feelings, a strong doctor-patient relationship, or DPR, helps keep the lines of communication open, crucial to the healing process.
"Patients need to understand what they need to do - take medication, exercise and so on - and they need to feel motivated to cooperate with the medical plan," says Hoppe, who is the college's associate dean for student programs. "If they don't have a good DPR they often don't have sufficient understanding or motivation and sometimes the medical plan isn't carried out optimally."
A 1995 MSU study found that patients are much more satisfied with their health care when their doctors are extensively trained in the ways of DPR. Unfortunately, most medical colleges spend very little time on this.
At MSU's College of Human Medicine, training future doctors to better communicate with patients has been key to the college's curriculum since its founding in 1964. The college was one of the first medical schools in the country to use simulated patients in teaching DPR.
"In fact, our graduate surveys continue to tell us that our students value this training and feel that they have more skills in this than their peers who are trained elsewhere," Hoppe says.
More than 70 percent of the nation's allopathic medical schools use simulated patients for some aspect of student training, often in the area of communication.
At the College of Human Medicine, more than 70 hours of the curriculum is devoted to teaching students the fundamentals of communicating with patients. During this time, they meet in small groups, interview simulated patients, and, in one of the more unique aspects of the class, create visual art forms that depict their thoughts on DPR.
These art forms, which include short stories, poems, collages, photos and needlework, are then put on display at an all-college function.
"Where we used to think that competency in relating to people and in creating strong relationships with patients were a matter of 'personality' or 'upbringing,'" Hoppe says, "we now know that these are teachable skills."
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Contact: Ruth Hoppe, MSU College of Human Medicine, (517) 353-5440
or Tom Oswald, Media Communications, (517) 355-2281 or (517) 676-4389
[email protected]
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