Your New doctor & Patient Concerns

Dr. Jane Orient Your doctor might not be dedicated to (or skilled at) finding the correct diagnosis or best treatment for you.re The De-sciencing of American Medicine and What It Means to You.

• Darrell Kirch of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), intends to redefine what makes a good doctor. 
• Physicians who reveal an improper attitude are being purged now
• So where does this leave patients? They might lose their trusted, highly skilled physician, who was dedicated to making them well but who revealed a politically incorrect belief that is irrelevant to their care...
• Your doctor might not be dedicated to (or skilled at) finding the correct diagnosis or best treatment for you. That might even be contrary to his/her duty to improve population health or cosmic justice

With all the talk about "evidence-based medicine," you might think that doctors were becoming much more focused on rigorous science. But like the names attached to bills in Congress—such as the Affordable Care Act, which outlaws affordable insurance, the language used in the movement to fundamentally transform America and American medicine usually means the opposite of what it suggests.

Are older doctors uneducated in science, and do they base their treatments on opinion, intuition, or outdated dogma, while younger doctors use objective observations and analysis?

Consider the kind of medical student our prestigious medical schools are now seeking. In former years, premeds were notorious nerds, usually science majors, constantly studying to make grades in hard subjects. High scores on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) required ability for quantitative thinking and a foundation of factual scientific knowledge.

Since 2015, the new MCAT includes "situational judgment tests." 

Ezekiel Emanuel asks in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, Feb 20, 2018), "Does Medicine Overemphasize IQ?" A high IQ is no guarantee that a physician can "lead a multidisciplinary health team or effectively help patients change their behavior in ways that tangibly improve their health outcomes." Instead, reformers advocate eliminating "the irrelevant premed requirements of organic chemistry, physics, and calculus, while requiring training in psychology and leadership." A model negotiating session might be included in the interview process. Of course, the physician must be able to "sensitively discuss end-of-life care preferences." Emanuel has promoted the view that .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}