Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop decried the doctor-patient relationship in the age of managed care and called for a "revitalization of physician professionalism" in a speech yesterday afternoon.
"The once proud and dramatic Hippocratic oath is being abandoned," Koop told approximately 40 students, faculty and guests in Brace Commons at the supercluster's first programming event.
Koop expressed concern over the limited amount of time that patients are able to spend with physicians and the difficulty they may experience in choosing their physicians when confronted with health management organizations.
Koop said, "Only one of 52 patients ever gets to tell his story to his physician," and called for physicians to listen better, talk slowly and to realize in many cases, "patients are simply not emotionally equipped to deal with what doctors have to say."
Koop also said the intrusion of lawyers and business interests into doctor patient relationships and meetings is detrimental, explaining his visits with patients are "crowded with people I wouldn't want to have there, and I'm sure my patient wouldn't want to have either."
But some patients prefer HMOs, Koop said. Some patients say HMOs provide them with high quality medical care, and Koop said the system gives patients the potential to form better relationships with doctors.
Koop also called for reform in the education of physicians, criticizing medical schools for their failure to teach potential doctors how to discuss death with terminally ill patients.
Mayank Keshoviah '97, said Koop's ideas were thought provoking.
He said the doctor-patient relationship "is an issue which I'll tend to follow more, at least with a little more insight than I had in the past."
Prior to Koop's speech, History Professor Leo Spitzer, a faculty associate for the East Wheelock Cluster, spoke to "inaugurate what will be the first" in the cluster's "issues and ideas" series which will present speakers in Brace Commons on important contemporary topics.
