Changing history: The questions you ask patients keep expanding
The centuries-old interview at the core of medical practice is under pressure to evolve, just as it also becomes more essential.
By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Posted April 6, 2009.
After Martin Duke, MD, retired as director of medical education and chief of cardiology at Connecticut's Manchester Memorial Hospital, he found himself more often the patient than the physician. As a result, he spent more time giving his medical history than taking someone else's, and he noticed significant changes in how the task was accomplished. The time spent on it was shorter. It often was taken by an allied health worker. And, sometimes it didn't even involve a face-to-face conversation. Instead, he simply checked "yes" or "no" boxes on a questionnaire.
In a paper he authored in the November-December 2008 Connecticut Medicine, he bemoaned this shift. "If this trend were to continue, it is conceivable that one day patients and doctors may not even be speaking with each other," he wrote.
"Technology has changed the whole approach, and technology does add something," said Dr. Duke in an interview. "But it cannot stand by itself. It needs the person-to-person interaction for some direction."/.../
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