Docs Not Always Honest With Patients

Dateline Feb, 2012
Fierce Healthcare has;
Docs Not Always Honest With Patients
February 9, 2012 | By Alicia Caramenico

Honesty is the best policy, but according to a survey published in the February Health Affairs, that's not necessarily the case in healthcare. In fact, many physicians don't always follow the Charter on Medical Professionalism standards that promote physician honesty and openness with patients.

Of the 1,891 practicing physicians surveyed in 2009, about one-third did not completely agree that they should disclose serious medical errors to patients, and nearly two-fifths did not completely agree that they should reveal their financial ties to drug and device manufacturers, noted a Health Affairs blog post.

Further, more than one-tenth of physicians admitted they told patients something that was untrue within the past year, while more than half said they described a patient's prognosis with more optimism than justified, reported Medscape Today.

Such findings may throw a wrench into the industry's move toward patient-centered care, as they suggest patients may get incomplete and inaccurate information from their physicians.

"Until all physicians take a frank and open approach to communication, it will be very difficult to enact patient-centered care more broadly," wrote lead author Lisa Iezzoni, a physician and professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, the blog post noted.

The lack of honesty and openness with patients should serve as a "welcome wake-up call" to healthcare providers, Linda Emanuel, a medical ethicist from Northwestern University, told Medscape. "We need to do some serious interventions to return to our ethical values," she said.

The survey also revealed that honest communication may be driven by demographics, as women and underrepresented minorities in healthcare are more likely to adhere to the Charter on Medical Professionalism standards.

For more information:
- read the study abstract
- here's the Health Affairs blog post
- read the Medscape article

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Thank You Fierce Healthcare and Ms Caramenico


"Docs Not Always Honest With Patients"

Really? 

REALLY?

http://psychroaches.blogspot.com/search?q=18C95

You know, much is made about the need for "Informed Consent" in Psychiatry.

Read the Cited Federal Racketeering Statute.

"Informed Consent" with any Drug that the FDA Knows Causes Violent Homicides is impossible.

If the patient were told the Truth about such drugs, the Patient would be Chargeable as a co-conspirator in a Court of Law for agreeing to Ingest the drug.

And "Docs are Not Always Honest With Patients".

We'll say, when they're peddling drugs worth up to 10 years per script, and more, in a Federal Penitentiary.