This is an excerpt from Pauline W. Chen, M.D.’s, New York Times column, Doctor and Patient.

Medicine is ever more technology-driven but there is an “expanding movement in medical education: a growing emphasis on the human side of medical care.”

She quotes a foundation president who funds programs in “humanism” as saying,”But everything that is happening to doctors dissuades them from these humanistic ideals.”

Her comment shows another cause of the steady decline of doctors willing to practice primary care in the community. Primary care physicians always have been the sure-fire humanists in medicine. They pay attention to the whole patient.

This humanistic movement is a thermometer checking changes in medicine.

It now is necessary to have a movement to protect the values that have guided doctors for centuries and bring so many into the medical profession in the first place.

The New York Times

…”The program, which also helps family members who are struggling with terminally ill loved ones, was part of an innovative new center for humanism at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School in Newark. The center offers four-year scholarships for students with outstanding academic and community service records.”

…”The school’s initiative, started with a $3.2 million grant from the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, is part of what many believe is an expanding movement in medical education: a growing emphasis on the human side of medical care. Leaders of this “humanism movement” have come from both the general public and within the ranks of medical education. And although they have focused on issues like patient-centered care, physician professionalism, clinics for the uninsured and disaster relief, nearly all have agreed on one thing: the importance of supporting what they believe are the natural, but often suppressed, ideals and inclinations of those who chose to pursue a career in medicine. (Emphasis added)

“I believe there is a yearning among physicians to practice this way,” said Sandra O. Gold, president and chief executive of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. The nonprofit organization has financed the bulk of the movement’s initiatives in the last two decades, with more than $15 million in grants for research, lectures and conferences. “But everything that is happening to doctors dissuades them from these humanistic ideals,” she said.” (Emphasis added)

Source: New York Times, June 3, 2010