Putting the Person back into Personalized Medicine

Physicians lament the lack of personalized attention in medicine these days, worried that diagnostic equipment and lab tests may have replaced the physician’s touch and even his propensity to ask pertinent questions of the patient. For example, Abraham Verghese, professor of medicine at Stanford University, warned in The New York Times about excesses of technology and the substantial increase in CAT scans and accompanying large doses of radiation. “…This ease of ordering a scan has caused doctors’ most basic skills in examining the body to atrophy,” Verghese says.

Comfort and Care

Personalized attention is, by nature, a vital component of the personalized medicine model exemplified by SignatureMD. Here, comprehensive health and wellness programs reign, along with exceptional care and service. In concierge medicine, physician and patient are partners. Test results are only as good as the doctor who interprets them, and SignatureMD physicians have the time to effectively utilize their extensive education and experience. It’s another reason this model of care is gaining so much attention and momentum. Verghese would like to see more doctors use “words of comfort” in communicating with their patients. That is. after all, one quietly understood reason why patients visit their doctors in the first place.
Photo Courtesy of The Washington Post