Computers can't listen--algorithmic logic meets patient centredness.
The doctor-patient relationship is crucial to the practice of medicine and yet the rise of science in the 19th and 20th centuries shifted doctors' focus away from the patient toward another entity: the disease. Slowly, the medical profession is rediscovering the importance of the doctor-patient relationship. General practice has contributed significantly by developing the patient centred clinical method, and further models have been introduced that take into account both the doctor's and the patient's perspectives. More recent changes in medicine--particularly computerisation and the introduction of evidence based medicine--may once again threaten this emphasis on patient centredness.
Pearce
Christopher
C
Whitehorse Division of General Practice and Monash University, Victoria. chris_pearce@mac.com
Trumble
Steve
S
D000465:Algorithms; D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D006801:Humans; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations