Quality in Healthcare: Cultural Competence, Diagnostic Accuracy or Patronizing Insensitivity?

By HANS DUVEFELT I sometimes tell patients “I work for the government”, but sometimes I say the opposite, “I work for you”. Herein lies a dichotomy that is eating away at primary care in this country, like a slow growing cancer. I suspect everybody is aware of it, but it seems nobody has the inclination to deal with it. 2020 exposed how differently Americans view and prioritize things like personal freedom and public safety. We have also seen how vastly different perceptions of reality suddenly exist about what constitutes medical facts. Alternative facts and fake news are suddenly household concepts. For years, American healthcare has paid lip service to ethnic and cultural sensitivity, as long as minority opinions or practices don’t clash too badly with the holy cows of western society. We tolerate circumcision in men, but not genital mutilation in women, for example. But we don’t even pay lip service to the majority’s right to direct their own healthcare. Some people want to be screened for everything and some don’t. How heavy-handed should the healthcare system or individual providers be? If you buy a car and never bring it in for routine maintenance, isn’t that your personal choice, your personal freedom? Why should healthcare be completely different? In bread and butter primary care, we are squeezed every day between patients’ requests for healthcare and the American quasi-religious medical quality dogma. The possibly well-meani...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care Source Type: blogs