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Clinicians’ Power and Leadership
Author(s) -
Schei Edvin,
Cassell Eric
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.1002/hast.97
Subject(s) - constructive , power (physics) , perception , illusion , psychology , health care , social psychology , medicine , medical education , cognitive psychology , political science , law , physics , process (computing) , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , computer science , operating system
Despite medical leaders’ increasing acceptance of the idea that the whole person should be the focus of care, empirical studies show clinicians generally remain focused on narrower goals: disease categories, standardized treatment procedures, and objective measurements of health improvements. We assume doctors want to do a good job, consistent with their perception of the goals and norms of their profession, so they practice medicine based on the illusion that clinical medicine is “knowledge treating disease,” not people treating people. We believe that doctors’ seeming reduction of patients to clinical objects results from not seeing themselves as leaders for their patients or accepting their constructive power in clinical encounters .