The doctor-patient relationship is one of the widely discussed topics in health settings. The discussion about the issue has existed for years, with people giving divergent opinions on the actual relationship. According to Rosen et al. (2018), the relationship between doctor and patient plays a critical role in enhancing the entire treatment and medication process's effectiveness. The doctor-patient relationship remains the basis and foundation of the health care provision process. One of the first things that a patient does when they get into a health facility is going through a consultation room where they interact with doctors. Depending on the patient's time in the facility, the doctor and patient continue to interact as the patient receive treatment. Over recent years, concerns have been raised over strained doctor-patient relationships, with most cases of unethical practices among the doctors.
According to Kaldjian (2019), the relationship between a doctor and patient exists when a doctor meets a patient's medical need by mutual consent, the connection from modern medical ethics. Human resource also comes into place as it is changed to manage the doctors and ensure that everything is in place. Even though doctors have their schedule of meeting with patients, human resource still chips in ensuring that the doctors maintain a code of conduct and ethics for a given healthcare facility. Just like any other business where human resource is expected to manage employees and ensure that clients receive the best services, the human resource in healthcare is expected to manage doctors as employees and patients as clients. In a medical setup, the human resource manager should ensure that doctors regularly attend to the patients and maintain a code of conduct and ethics created by the institution. Not everything in the health setting is associated with medicine; there are essential factors that need to be followed to ensure that service provision is an efficient and effective-for instance, time management. Time is critical in the provision of healthcare services but is not entirely about healthcare providers; everyone in the hospital should observe time management, including cooks and cleaners. The human resources department's role is to ensure that every employee in the health department follows the provided time guideline. Thus eventually benefiting patients in the long run.
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The main target of any hospital is to provide quality services to its clients (Patients). The human resource department is mandated to evaluate employees to ensure that they meet the qualifications and experience requirement taking up the hospital's role. With medical experts' help, human resources are expected to keep workers on toes and ensure that healthcare providers and patients' relationship is healthy and promotes better customer delivery. Furthermore, the human resource department is expected to observe both healthcare providers' and patients' ethical behaviors and address any unethical issues that may arise in the process of service provision.
The doctor-patient relationship is one of the critical factors determining the outcome of health care. It is based on trust and vulnerability, and it requires the doctor to sacrifice their interest for the sake and betterment of the patient. However, this is not the case in all medical setups; there are circumstances where doctors have displayed the highest level of immoral behaviors and unethical concerns, which have significantly affected patients' health outcomes. Another main factor associated with the doctor-patient relationship is perceptions that people have towards the relationship. It hasn't proved easy to develop a standard definition of this relationship and how it is expected to operate. Paterick et al. (2018) define the doctor-patient relationship as a consensual relationship in which the patient knowingly seeks the physician's assistance and in which the physician knowingly accepts the person as a patient." the doctor is expected to enter the relationship to treat the patient while respecting their autonomy and maintaining confidentiality.
Generally, the doctor-patient relationship consists of four main elements: trust, loyalty, mutual knowledge, and regard. These elements define how the relationship should exist to be efficient and effective. In this case, experience refers to the information and skills that the doctor has about the patient and the solution to solving the patient's problem. The trust which is the second most important thing is the faith that patient has in the doctor's caring and competence. In addition to that, the trust also includes the doctor's trust on the information provided by the patient and the report and belief of symptoms. Loyalty is defined as the patient's willingness to forgive the doctor for any mistake or inconvenience caused by the doctor. Finally, the regard element establishes the patient's feeling of equality with the doctors; feeling fairness, and togetherness. By observing the four elements, the relationship between doctor and patient is likely to be effective and benefit both the doctor and the patient.
Even though the four elements define the doctor-patient relationship, many developments have occurred over time. The relationship has become more involved with legal provisions introduced into the system. Currently, the relationship is not entirely based on either party's willingness; there are legal provisions that have been put to protect both parties from exploiting one another. Besides, ethical considerations have become critical in many healthcare facilities by providing new guidelines to protect both the doctor and the patient's interest. In the modern world, there are standard ethical provisions that doctors need to follow to protect the patients' integrity. Factors such as patient privacy and confidentiality have been the center of discussion regarding the relationship between doctor and patient. Based on the new legal and ethical guidelines, human resource's role has become very fundamental. The human resources department is expected to monitor both the doctor's operation to ensure that they observe the legal and ethical provisions provided by both the health facility and other relevant stakeholders.
The doctor-patient relationship directly impacts the management of the healthcare facility. The convenience of managing a healthcare facility largely depends on the corporation from both doctor and patient. If one party has boycotted, the service provider becomes complicated, and the management becomes a problem ( Gutmann and Moreno, 2019). Moreover, the strained relationship between doctor and patient may lead to the doctor not providing quality services, thus scaring away patients, and the health facility will eventually have more clients. The human resource is charged with ensuring that the relationship remains effective so as not to lose the doctor or the patients. It is recommended that doctors follow the code of conduct and code of ethics, well dealing with customers to promote good working relationships. The hospital should also offer proper training and education to learn how to go about their relationship and observe the health facility's guidelines.
References
Gutmann, A., & Moreno, J. D. (2019). Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven But Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Health Care in America . Liveright Publishing.
Kaldjian, L. C. (2019). Understanding Conscience as Integrity: Why Some Physicians Will Not Refer Patients for Ethically Controversial Practices. Perspectives in biology and medicine , 62 (3), 383-400.
Paterick, Z. R., Patel, N. J., & Paterick, T. E. (2018). Physician alert: the legal risks associated with 'on-call'duties in the USA. Postgraduate medical journal , 94 (1113), 411-414.
Rosen, M. A., DiazGranados, D., Dietz, A. S., Benishek, L. E., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P. J., & Weaver, S. J. (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. American Psychologist , 73 (4), 433.
