Are we losing the art of human touch?

The way medicine is being practiced today has put us in danger of losing a powerful old-fashioned tool, the human touch. When I had occasion to be hospitalized due to a serious rotator cuff Injury on my right shoulder, I felt as if I were a data base which made me wonder what would have occured if my arm had been amputated during my accident. Would the medical team have added this information to my computerized chart only after tests including a costly MRI had been called for?

Modern medicine is based on a  scientific model that seems to reject therapies that don’t fit into these plans. Because most doctors are trained in crisis care during their internship, they are less knowledgeable in treating the walking wounded amongst us.

When I was growing up, my doctor didn’t only diagnose my symptoms, he treated the underlying causes. What would I like my doctor to do today? I would like him to see me as an integrated whole rather than a mechanical machine. What has happened is that a person is divided into separate parts, each with its own specialist. Patients with the same disease are all treated the same way, but each person reacts differently. I need to be treated and not only for my disease. Tests and computerized charts have taken over and seem to have more meaning that the patients.

I believe that a doctor or a psychiatrist can tell a great deal by studying a patient as he/she walks into the clinic. And, if doctors were less involved with powerful drug companies, it might be to the benefit of their patients in general.