How can patients trust the medical professionals once again?

When you walk into a medical office for a visit, does the physician look down at an iPad and breeze through your  medical history so they can get to their next appointment? Or do they take time to make eye contact, really listen to, and understand your health concerns?

At Tepeyac, we often say that the missing vitamin in medical care is vitamin R for “relationship” between the doctor and patient. That is because health is relational, not simply transactional. Patients are patients, not customers or consumers of the provider of service model in vogue today. This is at the heart of the lack of trust in medicine today.

Sadly, trust in the doctor-patient relationship is broken. Physicians are burned out and disillusioned by the bureaucracy of the medical system. Patients can’t be sure if their doctor is taking the time to get to the root of their concerns or just “putting a bandaid” on it and sending them home so they can get to their next patient. 

Not to mention, trust in medicine is waning because phrases like “evidence-based” and “follow the science” have become so politicized in recent decades and dissenting views are silenced.  Medicine is never a single narrative. Medicine never selects a one-size-fits-all approach. This is antithetical to science and to medicine and to human flourishing.  

When the doctor-patient relationship is broken, health suffers as a result. Patients who used to trust their doctors stop coming. Health concerns that pop up are ignored, or missed at routine physicals. A relational approach helps to read between the lines and serve patients in an integrated fashion without harming either of the two patients–mother and child–we care for in OB/GYN.

Our role as doctors is to hate the disease, but love both patients.

How can patients trust the medical professionals once again? 

The heart of medicine is to serve, love, and care for both mother and baby; to love as Christ has loved us (John 15:12)–and not just through our medical expertise, but also through listening conversation. At Tepeyac, we take the time to listen to our patients. This is foundational to trust.   Taking thorough medical histories and physical evaluations are the core of the practice of the “Way of Medicine”.

Getting to know my patients and their life circumstances, dreams, and fears is necessary to get a full picture of their mental and physical health. Relationship is necessary to do no harm and to be able to give advice in a respectful manner. Doctors are not vending machines.  

For abortion-minded patients, we do our best to create an accepting atmosphere in which the mother feels safe and fully understood in hopes that she does not “have to” choose abortion because we can answer her concerns going forward and walk with her along this path in collaboration with many other services and people. 

It takes a community to care for those in need who see killing their unborn child as the answer to their problem of being unable to care for their child.

We consider the physical and psychological consequences abortion would bring her including higher breast cancer risks, pre-term delivery in future pregnancies, and mental health risks to mention a few. We thoroughly discuss the pros and cons of all options and address all of her concerns. And if a complication arises in her pregnancy, we never attack the unborn baby as if it is the disease.

Our role as doctors is to hate the disease, but love both patients. And we believe you can love enough that you can make abortion unthinkable, one heart at a time.

Medicine as Mercy is first based on relationships and getting to know patients, and then on tailored treatments based on the full person’s genetics, medical, and social history. Doctors cannot offer a good treatment plan to their patient without first building a good relationship with them first.

We never get rid of the patient as the disease.

The foundation to recovering trust with patients is not relying on only one “technological solution” or one “politically correct” way of thinking about a disease and treatment, but building a gratuitous relationship where we lay down our life in small and large ways for our patients/friends (John 15:13).

We must truly will their good over our own and that sometimes means sacrificing more of our time.

The foundation to recovering trust with patients is not relying on only one “technological solution” or one “politically correct” way of thinking about a disease and treatment, but building a gratuitous relationship where we lay down our life in small and large ways for our patients/friends (John 15:13). We must truly will their good over our own and that sometimes means sacrificing more of our time. That is how we restore the relationship between OB/GYNS and both of our patients. That is how we offer a glimpse of just how merciful the relationship between a doctor and patients is meant to be.

In order to recover patient trust, relationship must be the foundation of medicine.