The difference between good doctors and GREAT doctors
“Do you like your family doctor?” my sister asked me a few weeks ago. “Would you recommend it?”
“Absolutely! I love my doctor, he’s great!” I responded immediately, and then began a long and emphatic testimonial, as if I were the publicist for my doctor. During my monologue, I used words like “smart,” “logical,” “listens,” and “respectful.” Later, I realized that I hadn’t uttered the words “qualified” or “well trained.”not even once.
The conversation with my sister made me reflect on the factors and characteristics that differentiate great doctors from good ones. Websites that rate and rank doctors litter the Internet. On these lists, medical professionals earn the title of “Top Docs” based on surveys completed by their medical colleagues. So I asked a panel of six doctors, nurses, and health professionals questions. I asked him: What do you look for when considering a physician to oversee your own family’s care? In your opinion, what qualities do the best doctors possess?
GOOD TO EXCELLENT: HAVE A SOLID EDUCATION AND TRAINING
By choosing a physician certified by one of the twenty-four American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) member boards, you can be sure they meet nationally recognized standards of education, knowledge, experience, and skills to provide high-quality care. quality. in a specific medical specialty. Board certification goes beyond basic medical licensure. Determining if a particular doctor is Board Certified is fast, free and easy. Simply visit the ABMS website, sign up, and enter the doctor’s name and city.
Mike Lipscomb, MD, an emergency room physician at North Fulton Hospital in Roswell, Georgia and a physician with Apollo MD, believes that physicians at the top of their fields have a strong foundation of education and training to draw on when practicing medicine. . But Lipscomb also offers a caveat.
“I wouldn’t place a lot of importance on big-name schools,” he says.
He explains that tuition costs at these elite schools can reach more than $50,000 per year, making them unrealistic options for many medical students.
“Many public schools are less than a third of this,” he continues. “A high price does not correlate with a better education. Some of the best doctors I know went to big state universities to study and made the decision to get out with as little debt as possible.”
“And I wouldn’t make a big deal out of the research,” Lipscomb says. “Being good in the lab doesn’t necessarily correlate with being clinically competent.”
GOOD TO EXCELLENT: YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE FEED YOUR REASONING
“When looking for a doctor for myself or my family, I look at credentials as a minimum and the doctor’s experience as a second tier, depending on the nature of the care required,” says Adedapo Odetoyinbo, MD, SFHM, medical director and hospital director. . Medicine at Emory Johns Creek Hospital in Georgia. “Experience plays a key role when the need is more technical in nature or when decisions need to be made quickly in an emergency situation. More important to me than the research itself is the ability of the physician to integrate the results of the research and evidence-based medicine in their daily practice”.
Odetoyinbo refers to the practical ability of the doctor to decipher a puzzle, to select pieces of knowledge from his education and experiences and apply them correctly to the situation at hand. In the physician’s quest to protect and restore patient well-being, knowledge enhances reasoning and rational decision-making, and experts agree that some physicians are simply better at applying what they know than others.
GOOD TO EXCELLENT: THEY ARE EXCELLENT COMMUNICATORS
Many of the experts surveyed commented that the best of the best have a toolbox full of great soft skills – those personal attributes and qualities that enhance an individual’s one-on-one interactions and performance.
“What separates good doctors from what we consider to be the best doctors is their ability to listen to patients, to really listen to them and respond to what they say,” says Cindy Hardy, Physician Relations Manager at North Fulton Hospital who Work as a nurse. during years.
She points out that skilled clinicians allow patients to set the pace for the first few minutes of an interaction while listening and gathering valuable information. Only then do they respond.
A study published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association in 2005 (Travaline, Ruchinskas, and D’Alonzo) found that, in many cases, effective doctor-patient communication can improve a patient’s health as measurably as Many medications. Patients who understand their doctors are more likely to recognize their health problems, understand their treatment options, modify their behavior accordingly, and follow their medication schedules.
“And the big ones communicate with the patient and the family,” Hardy says. “The great ones listen to feedback and speak at a level that ensures everyone in the room understands what’s going on, which is particularly important when a doctor, patient and patient’s family are discussing a plan of care.”
Dr. Robert Campbell, Chief of Cardiac Services at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Sibley Heart Center adds that great physicians often surround themselves with staff members who are also committed to listening.
“Good communication helps support our team culture,” says Campbell. “Given the high volume, high patient acuity, and high patient throughput, both inpatient and outpatient, it is clear that no provider can work alone. Therefore, it is important that we work as a cohesive team and that requires a Excellent communication to coordinate our efforts.”
GOOD TO EXCELLENT: THEY ARE COMPASSIONATE
The best doctors not only maintain technical competence, but also nurture and exercise humanistic qualities—kindness, warmth, and compassion—when the patient needs it most.
“Again, credentials are a given,” says Debbie Keel, CEO of North Fulton Hospital. “But when a patient isn’t feeling well, or is afraid, or is facing lengthy and expensive care and is concerned about costs, she needs compassion, and the best doctors have a compassionate presence over them.”
Keel, a mother and grandmother, encourages her staff to see patients in a different light.
“I’m like, ‘That’s your mom in that bed,'” she adds. “The best doctors treat their patients with the same compassion they would their own family members.”
But showing compassion is more difficult today as doctors are on the edge, seeing more patients than ever during the course of the day.
“We can’t create more hours in the day,” she says. “It’s hard to show your sensitive side when you only have a few minutes with a patient, but the most respected doctors do.”
GOOD TO EXCELLENT: DEMONSTRATE THE HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARDS
All physicians are committed to promoting and advancing the highest level of medical ethics, a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. But most health care experts say that ethics goes well beyond a doctor’s moral obligations. Ethics encompasses how they perform when no one is looking and how they treat others.
“When I interview the doctors who join us, I tell them they won’t survive long if they’re lazy or unethical,” says Steve Waronker, MD, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Emory Johns Creek Hospital. “I also tell them that if they can’t live by the golden rule and treat the environmental services employee as well as they treat the CEO, they don’t need to apply.”
In fact, many doctors, especially the really great ones, view the Hippocratic Oath as a sacred covenant. By reciting it, doctors dress to practice medicine honestly, avoid acts of dishonesty or corruption, hold confidential conversations, among many other codes of moral conduct. It is your guide to ethical behavior.
Among other attributes that make good doctors truly great are intuitive perception: a sixth sense, approachability, common sense, bedside demeanor, and a doctor’s willingness to work as a team. But perhaps it’s a doctor’s ability to be multifaceted and multidimensional that makes some shine brighter than others.
“They possess compassion, common sense, mastery of a wealth of knowledge, and the humility to ask for help when things get complex and confusing,” says Waronker. “Ultimately, the best doctors have it all.”