The journey towards patient-centredness

[摘要] PATIENT-CENTREDNESS is at the heart of medicine.1 It is a core value of our discipline, recognised as the best way of helping an individual promote, preserve and restore their integrity of health.2 Patient-centredness is about giving the patient's viewpoint much more status in our hierarchy of clin-ical inputs;3,4 a revolution in the discussion of prognosis with dying patients was an early sign of this approach.5 Although the method has been endorsed in the rhetoric and vocational training of general practice for more than two decades, progress is slow and appears not yet to be widely realised in day-to-day consulting, even in specially selected consultations.6 Yet poor responsiveness to patients' wants can too often lead to mis-direction and waste of professional time and effort. Being responsive may often mean acknowledging and understanding the patient's wants rather than directly complying with them.7

[学科分类] 卫生学