Search citation statements
Paper Sections
Citation Types
Year Published
Publication Types
Relationship
Authors
Journals
In a previous Editorial [1], we referred to person-centered healthcare (PCH) as a new way of ‘thinking and doing’ in clinical practice, one that had become necessitated by medicine’s relentless empiricism, its positivistic reductionism and its failure to care for patients as individuals, which is to say as persons. In this, we found ourselves able to agree with Charon [2], but needing to distance ourselves from an over-arching description, by Weatherall, of modern medicine as a “failure” [3]. Indeed, modern advances in medicine may accurately be described as a triumph - but a triumph of scientific and technological advance only, not a triumph represented by an increased excellence in clinical practice per se, if excellence (versus competence) is to be defined as the successful translation of such advances to patients within an overtly humanistic framework of care - the process which represents and causes contextualisation [4]. If we add the statistics which demonstrate high rates of medical error and iatrogenic injury within health services and also the increasingly frequent institutional failings of major hospitals and the Care Home scandals of recent times to medicine’s tendency to view patients as subjects or objects or complex biological machines requiring some sort of ‘fixing’, then it is clear that modern healthcare systems are experiencing little short of an existential crisis. Such a crisis - and the high burn out rates of clinicians which also contribute to it, can no longer be ignored or ‘whitewashed’ over. Indeed, health systems themselves need to be ‘fixed’ if they are to become more ‘fit for purpose’. How, then, are such individual failings to be prevented from causing outright institutional failure? We contend that an urgent move to a more person-centered way of ‘thinking and doing’ may well represent a credible answer to such a question. But other questions must, still, legitimately, be asked: ‘What is person-centered healthcare?’ ‘How are we to understand it?’ ‘What is its essential meaning?’In a previous Editorial [1], we referred to person-centered healthcare (PCH) as a new way of ‘thinking and doing’ in clinical practice, one that had become necessitated by medicine’s relentless empiricism, its positivistic reductionism and its failure to care for patients as individuals, which is to say as persons. In this, we found ourselves able to agree with Charon [2], but needing to distance ourselves from an over-arching description, by Weatherall, of modern medicine as a “failure” [3]. Indeed, modern advances in medicine may accurately be described as a triumph - but a triumph of scientific and technological advance only, not a triumph represented by an increased excellence in clinical practice per se, if excellence (versus competence) is to be defined as the successful translation of such advances to patients within an overtly humanistic framework of care - the process which represents and causes contextualisation [4]. If we add the statistics which demonstrate high rates of medical error and iatrogenic injury within health services and also the increasingly frequent institutional failings of major hospitals and the Care Home scandals of recent times to medicine’s tendency to view patients as subjects or objects or complex biological machines requiring some sort of ‘fixing’, then it is clear that modern healthcare systems are experiencing little short of an existential crisis. Such a crisis - and the high burn out rates of clinicians which also contribute to it, can no longer be ignored or ‘whitewashed’ over. Indeed, health systems themselves need to be ‘fixed’ if they are to become more ‘fit for purpose’. How, then, are such individual failings to be prevented from causing outright institutional failure? We contend that an urgent move to a more person-centered way of ‘thinking and doing’ may well represent a credible answer to such a question. But other questions must, still, legitimately, be asked: ‘What is person-centered healthcare?’ ‘How are we to understand it?’ ‘What is its essential meaning?’
In a previous Editorial [1], we referred to person-centered healthcare (PCH) as a new way of ‘thinking and doing’ in clinical practice, one that had become necessitated by medicine’s relentless empiricism, its positivistic reductionism and its failure to care for patients as individuals, which is to say as persons. In this, we found ourselves able to agree with Charon [2], but needing to distance ourselves from an over-arching description, by Weatherall, of modern medicine as a “failure” [3]. Indeed, modern advances in medicine may accurately be described as a triumph - but a triumph of scientific and technological advance only, not a triumph represented by an increased excellence in clinical practice per se, if excellence (versus competence) is to be defined as the successful translation of such advances to patients within an overtly humanistic framework of care - the process which represents and causes contextualisation [4]. If we add the statistics which demonstrate high rates of medical error and iatrogenic injury within health services and also the increasingly frequent institutional failings of major hospitals and the Care Home scandals of recent times to medicine’s tendency to view patients as subjects or objects or complex biological machines requiring some sort of ‘fixing’, then it is clear that modern healthcare systems are experiencing little short of an existential crisis. Such a crisis - and the high burn out rates of clinicians which also contribute to it, can no longer be ignored or ‘whitewashed’ over. Indeed, health systems themselves need to be ‘fixed’ if they are to become more ‘fit for purpose’. How, then, are such individual failings to be prevented from causing outright institutional failure? We contend that an urgent move to a more person-centered way of ‘thinking and doing’ may well represent a credible answer to such a question. But other questions must, still, legitimately, be asked: ‘What is person-centered healthcare?’ ‘How are we to understand it?’ ‘What is its essential meaning?’In a previous Editorial [1], we referred to person-centered healthcare (PCH) as a new way of ‘thinking and doing’ in clinical practice, one that had become necessitated by medicine’s relentless empiricism, its positivistic reductionism and its failure to care for patients as individuals, which is to say as persons. In this, we found ourselves able to agree with Charon [2], but needing to distance ourselves from an over-arching description, by Weatherall, of modern medicine as a “failure” [3]. Indeed, modern advances in medicine may accurately be described as a triumph - but a triumph of scientific and technological advance only, not a triumph represented by an increased excellence in clinical practice per se, if excellence (versus competence) is to be defined as the successful translation of such advances to patients within an overtly humanistic framework of care - the process which represents and causes contextualisation [4]. If we add the statistics which demonstrate high rates of medical error and iatrogenic injury within health services and also the increasingly frequent institutional failings of major hospitals and the Care Home scandals of recent times to medicine’s tendency to view patients as subjects or objects or complex biological machines requiring some sort of ‘fixing’, then it is clear that modern healthcare systems are experiencing little short of an existential crisis. Such a crisis - and the high burn out rates of clinicians which also contribute to it, can no longer be ignored or ‘whitewashed’ over. Indeed, health systems themselves need to be ‘fixed’ if they are to become more ‘fit for purpose’. How, then, are such individual failings to be prevented from causing outright institutional failure? We contend that an urgent move to a more person-centered way of ‘thinking and doing’ may well represent a credible answer to such a question. But other questions must, still, legitimately, be asked: ‘What is person-centered healthcare?’ ‘How are we to understand it?’ ‘What is its essential meaning?’
Within our healthcare systems, avoidable error rates and medico-legal bills are soaring, care home and hospital scandals are frequent and patient-reported consternation and even frank distress with the inhuman way they are routinely ‘dealt with’ are all now so commonplace as to be almost normative. All of these things - and more - vividly illustrate that much is wrong within modern medicine and healthcare and that much, therefore, needs to be put right. If Society continues to tolerate this crisis of disregard and neglect and if it does not urgently take the time to consider why and how we have arrived at where we currently are - in order to take corrective actions - then we will have reached a very sad point in human history indeed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.