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The Seven Words That Changed My Perspective on Patient Care

Samantha Gogola1

  • 1Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Miami, Florida sgogo002@med.fiu.edu.

Annals of Family Medicine
|November 27, 2023
PubMed

"I'm already in so much pain, I was stuck in the car for hours, and now I have to see a student instead of my doctor?" She scoffs, crosses her arms, and looks away. Trying to understand why she is in so much pain I ask, "Are you happy with the care you're receiving?" She looks at me for the first time and I see her shoulders drop. The response that followed is one I will never forget, and is part of a larger lesson I learned involving the power of open-ended questions and their ability to foster understanding of patients in the context of their life stories. Here, I share patient stories and the 7 words that taught me the gift of genuine curiosity.

Keywords:
medical educationnarrative medicinepatient-centered carepersonal narrativephysician-patient relationsprimary health care

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