The linked article from today's New York Times discusses the experience of Jill Taylor, a renowned brain scientist, who experienced a stroke and consequently gained greater insight to the workings of the human brain. While the article does not directly touch on her new-found understanding, it reminded me of the story Professor Lewenstein told about the similarly well-known doctor who was afflicted with health troubles from his own specialty. I wonder if such experiences allow doctors to have a greater understanding of what a patient feels, senses, and is able to do in a dire situation.
For example, after recognizing that she was unable to think clearly or speak as she was having her stroke, has Dr. Taylor taken steps to create a new alert system for patients who are at high risks for strokes? Might she encourage the use of such products as Life Alert, where a patient will simply have to activate a button to receive immediate medical aid, rather than call 911 and speak to an operator?
By using personal experiences, I believe that doctors can not only improve their medical knowledge, but can boost their empathy and understanding of patient experiences. Such incidents may lead to improved health care as well as a more pleasant doctor-patient relationship.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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6 comments:
What an interesting article! Such experiences probably do lead doctors to become more empathetic and understanding of what their patients go through. I agree with you because Dr. Taylor’s experience might cause her to think of better emergency response procedures. Now understanding what it is like to experience a stroke, she might even be able to find or create better therapeutic activities for recovering patients. Her experience will definitely lead to greater insights of what exactly happens during a stroke and I think that her experience and knowledge combined will allow her to really reach stroke-survivors. Dr. Taylor is going to inspire and help many people with her story. I agree that her experience will lead to better health care and more intimate doctor-patient relationships.
This is why I believe it is important for doctors to communicate effectively. As a result we get speeches, books, etc. about the their own experiences. These types of communication carry source credibility based on the fact that the person is highly-specialized in his or her field. Also, as you mentioned Danielle, we respect them more because we feel that they understand where we are coming from.
Dr. Taylor's experience also sheds light on a fact we sometimes forget: doctors are human as well. They get sick, hurt, heart-broken, etc. just like everyone else.
Wow I thought this was really interesting and I have always been fascinated by the brain. It would be so surreal to experience what she did and to be able to differentiate between the two hemispheres of the brain. It was like taking her brain apart bit by bit and understanding each separate part. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be as disconnected as she sometimes described. I think this article and video show that while we do know a lot about what each hemisphere does, there is more to learn about how it all comes together.
I agree with the other comments about how this experience would lead to some issues about communication. For example, she chose to talk about being completely connected to the energy and sense of peace around her, while other doctors might take this experience and focus on why she was feeling this-like maybe something with the chemicals and what they were doing. I do not want to say that more doctors should have strokes, but I think it would be interesting to hear other doctors' perspectives from the same or a similar experience.
I also thought this was an extremely enlightening and relevant article! Especially when you are a patient it is hard to imagine your doctor not in a state of full strength or optimal mental health. Doctors aren't this untouched breed; they are just as susceptible to illnesses. In this sense it seems appropriate that those medical practitioners who are afflicted with a health crisis apply it to their research or doctor-patient relationships. This blending of one's personal and professional life seems like it can only boost your professional integrity and credibility, but can it damage or infringe too much on one's personal circumstances? I'm sure we are all very aware of situations where people let their career dictate other aspects of their life. Do you think this is one of those situations or should we simply not worry about it because it can advance the field of medicine and science communication so greatly?
Even though today's lecture was focused on internet communication, this article resonates a lot with the levels of empowerment we discussed. If these levels serve to increase patients' ability to seek and discuss information in order to challenge doctors and embark on a new era of thinking, should Dr. Taylor's case (or lecture) be represented on this empowerment scale? Yes, she is "assisting others in taking authority over their own care" by opening discussion on strokes and acting as the "Michael J. Fox" of strokes, but she is a doctor. Does this notion of empowerment apply only to patient's who are trying to understand their disease or to doctors as well since they patients at times, too? And if doctor's are encouraged to openly discuss their health at the meso or macro-level, does it muddy the life between a personal and professional life? I'm sure these questions are very case-specific, but I'm curious about the boundaries of the medical communication field.
This is very interesting to me, being a neurobiology concentrator for my major. We actually just had a guest lecturere in one of my classes who is a neuroscientist with Parkinsons. It's interesting to get the point of view of someone who intricately understands what is happening to them, and it's not something we hear about all that often. I definitely think that people like this can use their own circumstances to advance the field of medicine. If they know not only that a treatment works for them, for example, but WHY it might work, they can help to develop it further for others.
Here's the original article I mentioned in class, about Dr. Michael Debakey.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/health/25surgeon.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=michael+debakey&st=nyt&oref=slogin
Even more interesting are the comments that people made in response to the article -- it raised a lot of ethical issues involving health communication:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E5D81F31F93AA15751C1A9609C8B63&scp=1&sq=michael+debakey&st=nyt
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