On Becoming a Healer

For years, doctors and those learning to practice medicine were told pain is "the fifth vital sign" and to treat it aggressively – including with opioids, "if that's what it takes." A consequent rise in opioid prescribing contributed to the devastating opioid crisis. Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, hard, with physicians cutting off opioid prescribing to patients, often without their consent. That too led to suffering with many deaths by suicide. What do these two seemingly opposing trends share in common? Both reflect a failure to embrace current knowledge about chronic pain and to bring compassion and caring to people who are suffering. Co-hosts Saul Weiner and Stefan Kertesz discuss the implications from two perspectives: Medical learners are still taught to treat chronic pain like a simple bodily injury ("somatically") with the caveat to avoid opioids, spurring apathy and frustration. Stefan, an addiction medicine specialist who has been conducting a national study of suicides related to forced opioid tapers, argues that we have "become addicted to talking about opioids" rather than about all the good we could do if we applied current knowledge and compassion to help people who are suffering.

From the 1940 to the 1970's, medicine went from an almost exclusively male club to a profession in which women physicians were commonplace. Our physician guest is Dr. Anne Walling, who has written a book about the experiences of 37 women who attended a Midwestern medical school, Women in Medicine: Stories from the Girls in White This was a time when pornographic images appeared in lecture slides, and sexual harassment and discrimination in the job market were ubiquitous. Despite the misogyny, the women interviewed nearly all expressed gratitude that they were able to have such meaningful, rewarding, and stimulating careers. Our guest told us that her interviewees described reunions where male colleagues seemed burned out and cynical, while many of these women remained upbeat and excited about their medical work. What can we learn from the story of women's entry into mainstream medicine? How has the profession been changed (or not) by their presence?

Medical educators generally acknowledge the importance of training doctors who care for the whole patient rather than just treat the disease. Most medical school curricula attempt to teach to that philosophy, but how successful are they, really? Our guest, Robert C. Smith, is a physician and author, who trained with Dr. George Engel, founder of the biopsychosocial model. In his new book, Dr. Smith argues that medical education mostly pays "lip service" when it comes to training physicians who are ready and comfortable serving patients who struggle with unaddressed psychosocial and psychological needs. He calls for a complete overhaul of medical education. What would that take? Is an overhaul feasible, or are the market forces that now drive medicine as big business too overpowering to allow for transformative change?

Soon after Lisa Iezzoni MD was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during her first year at Harvard Medical School, from which she graduated in 1984, faculty and administrators discouraged her from practicing medicine. And in her final year they made it impossible for her when the dean's office refused to write a recommendation letter (now called a Medical Student Performance Evaluation). This week marks the 35th anniversary of the American Disabilities Act which was signed into law on July 26th, 1990. Much has changed since but -- as Dr. Iezzoni, who went on to become an eminent scholar and national policy leader on disability, has documented -- not nearly enough. She and others have documented wide disparities in the quality of care patients with disabilities still receive, and in 2021 she published the findings of a national study of physician attitudes towards disability that document's persistent stigma and misinformation. Disabled patients were described as a "disruption to clinic flow" and a majority of physicians believed that patients with significant disability inherently have a worse quality of life. Practices are also ill-equipped to care for them, Dr. Iezzoni, who chaired the U.S. Access Board's advisory committee on accessibility standards for medical equipment observed that "healthcare has been among the most backward environments, in terms of making itself accessible. Movie theaters are accessible, sports stadiums are accessible, transit is accessible. But healthcare facilities—no." In our conversation with her, we explore why. How is it that physicians have such difficulty appreciating that disability is simply a part of the human experience? We explore the link between the culture within medical education and training, and the kind of people physicians become. ------ References: Physicians' Perceptions of People with Disability and Their Health Care [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33523739/] US Access Board [https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/25/2024-16266/standards-for-accessible-medical-diagnostic-equipment]

It is difficult to overstate the achievements of Richard Clarke Cabot (1868-1939) a relatively little-known, old-moneyed physician of the early 20th century who was far ahead of his time in how much he contributed, and how willing he was to question his own limitations. Cabot's achievements include: creation and self-funding of the first medical social work service and establishment of the fields of clinical pastoral care and medical ethics. His work offered seminal contributions to the fields of hematology, cardiology, infectious disease, and medical education – including the clinical pathologic conference, case-based learning and the differential diagnosis; the first large-scale randomized experiment in the history of criminology; the science of medical error; and introducing the concept of a group insurance plan. He authored countless books, articles and textbooks. Most remarkable, considering Cabot's extraordinary intellect, was his openness to reflecting on his own deficits as a physician, including getting diagnoses wrong, and describing his own failures in seeing the humanity of his patients. Joy, curiosity, and generosity were among his distinctive personal characteristics. So, why is he not more widely remembered? Perhaps because of one of his greatest attributes: he pointed out things about his profession that the medical establishment didn't want to hear.