Three stages of medical dialogue

✍ Scribed by Henry Abramovitch; Eliezer Schwartz

• Book ID: 104796666
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 740 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-1200
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00539739

✦ Synopsis

The negative consequences of physicians' failure to establish and maintain personal relationships with patients are at the heart of the "humanistic crisis" in medicine. To resolve this crisis, a new model of doctor-patient interaction is proposed, based on the ideas of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. This model shows how the physican may successfully combine the personal (I-Thou) and impersonal (I-It) aspects of medicine in three stages. These "Three Stages of Medical Dialogue" include:

1. An Initial Personal Meeting stage, which initiates the doctor-patient relationship and involves mutual confirmation; 2. An Examination stage, which requires a shift from a personal to an impersonal style of interaction; 3. An Integration Through Dialogue or "Healing Through Meeting" Stage, which involves the integration of the impersonal medical data into the ongoing dialogue between doctor and patient, as a basis for shared decision-making. The use of the model, as well as common failures of doctor-patient dialogue are discussed.