Patient and Physician Responsibility in the Treatment of Chronic Illness

Abstract

Acute illness treatment models fail to meet the needs of the chronically ill. Traditional medical education of physicians fails to adequately prepare them to deliver effective care to community-based patients who will never be well. The wants and needs of patients with chronic illness may be dramatically opposed to the wants and needs of the treating physicians. The patients want a competent, sensitive, and caring physician. Medical training programs graduate disease-oriented specialists. These models need to be integrated. This article proposes a more realistic disease model based on a humanistic approach to illness and the education of physicians. This model will allow patients and physicians to be more satisfied with their treatment alternatives and more comfortable with their outcomes—a paradigm for delivering improved health care services for the patients medicine cannot cure.