Let’s Get Real: Medical Students Learning from, with and About Patients

Abstract

One of the striking features of Stewart’s (1995) review of the literature on patient health outcomes as related to quality of doctor–patient interaction is that the most powerful form of relationship is neither strong paternalism nor strong patient autonomy, but strong doctor–patient dialogue. The optimal ‘care formula’ for the medical encounter is not just doctor plus patient, but doctor times patient. While this may seem self-evident, the cumulative research evidence suggests that the majority of doctor–patient interactions do not follow this formula (Roter and Hall 2006).

There should be ‘no teaching without the patient for a text, and the best teaching is that taught by the patient himself.’

William Osler (quoted in Roter and Hall 2006, p. 135)