Physicians possess a position of power over their patients that can be deepened when factors like race, socioeconomic status, and gender come into play. I’ll be drawing from my immersion experience for global health that I completed this past winter after shadowing surgeons at the Lakewood Regional Medical Center in Long Beach, California. During my experience, I observed the differences in communication between doctors that spoke the same language or shared cultural background as their patients compared to the doctors that didn’t seem to have these shared linguistic or cultural identities. One major finding from my research is that communication between physicians and their patients may be further improved if physicians spend more time with their patients during appointments. Patient and physician comfort levels are likely to improve if physicians are trained in cultural competency and engage in continuous training. Cultural competency training would remind doctors to treat patients as individuals, while also taking their individual identities into account to treat patients in a way that increases their comfort levels. Increased patient-physician communication will also increase the health outcomes for patients because there will be an increase in trust in the relationship, leading patients to believe their doctor’s advice is in their best interest and leading physicians to provide patients with the highest quality advice. As I pursue a degree in medicine after graduating from Miami, this research has opened my eyes to the ways that I can improve in order to increase patient comfort levels, and ultimately their health outcome when I begin practicing medicine.
Author: Dawn Falokun
Advisors: Dr. Paul Flaspohler, Department of Psychology; Dr. Vaishali Raval, Department of Psychology; Dr. Cameron Hay-Rollins, Anthropology and Global Health Studies
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