Patient-Centred Care - Do we really believe in it?

Abstract

For all those of us who have long subscribed to patient-centredness as being central to the discipline of family medicine, this development must no doubt be welcomed as something long overdue. However, in our haste to do so, it would probably be wise, particularly in view of the implications for postgraduate training of family doctors, to do some stocktaking as to the state of the art of patient-centredness in our work at present. For the burgeoning popularity of patient-centredness in recent years seems also to have brought in its wake a number of major misconceptions which need to be recognised and addressed as soon as possible. Some of these misconceptions are of such a serious nature that they necessitate a serious re-appraisal of what patient-centredness is and what it isn't.