Why physicians should not be providing wellness advice

The buzz word in healthcare today is wellness . Everyone agrees that chronic illnesses are going to become a major problem in the future; and that because a lot of these are a result of faulty lifestyle choices , physicians should start counseling patients about the right lifestyle options , so that they can promote health and stop their patients from falling ill . It seems quite logical that physicians should be prescribing wellness rather than only focusing on treating illness. After all, the doctor’s word carries a lot of clout – and prevention is better than cure . Actually, this is shortsighted advise for many reasons . For one, while patients are happy to listen to what a doctor has to say when they are ill, they are equally happy to ignore his well-meaning advise when they are well ! When patients go to a doctor with a medical problem , the last thing they want to listen to is wellness homilies -  they just want the doctor to fix their problem for them . The reality is that when you are ill, you occupy a completely different universe , and what you need is relief of your symptoms quickly from your doctor, rather than a lecture about what you can do to improve your lifestyle This will just fall on deaf ears. Also, physicians are not good at giving wellness advice. This is not something which they're interested in – and because it’s pretty boring and repetitive , they don’t like doing it. Most doctors are hardly models of wellness themselves because ...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Source Type: blogs