Physician's Weekly Podcast

Should Doctors Apologize to Patients? Also Computer-Based Psychiatric Treatments

December 21, 2021 Physician's Weekly Season 1 Episode 33
Physician's Weekly Podcast
Should Doctors Apologize to Patients? Also Computer-Based Psychiatric Treatments
Show Notes

Welcome to this episode of Physician’s Weekly Podcast. My name is Dr Rachel Giles, from Medicom Medical Publishers, in collaboration with Physician’s Weekly. We have 3 fantastic in-depth interviews for you this week. 

Patients want to learn about medical errors that affect their health. Most physicians support error disclosure and believe they have an ethics obligation to disclose harmful errors to their patients or families, even if this disclosure comes at a personal or professional cost. However, in practice, physicians typically do not disclose harmful errors to patients. In a survey of U.S. physicians published in 2007, 320 (95%) of the 338 responding physicians indicated that they felt obligated to tell patients about such a mistake; however, only 41% of respondents reported that they had in practice disclosed minor harmful errors to their patients, while only 5% reported that they had disclosed major errors. Clearly, a discrepancy exists between physicians' desire to disclose and their practice of disclosing errors. In this episode of Physician’s Weekly, we speak to our regular contributor, who goes by the pseudonym, Dr MedLaw about which legal malpractice aspects should be considered when errors may have occurred, and when it is and is not appropriate to apologize.

Also in this episode, we speak with Dr Shauna Newton, from Massachusetts General Hospital, about how in young adults between 20 and 39 years of age with high cholesterol levels, guidelines are simply not being met in a large multicenter study, and that there are some undefined elements for how to treat patients in this age group. She recently presented her results at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions.

But first, Physician’s Weekly speaks with Dr Björn Meyer, in Germany, who is an expert in the in the development and evaluation of computer-based psychological treatments for various psychiatric and physical conditions, including randomized controlled trials of internet interventions. To date 4 of his team’s programs have shown clear clinical benefit in randomized controlled trials and are reimbursed by insurance in Germany. We talk about how this approach can really make a difference to closing gaps in access to care in traditionally underserved communities. He does a great job introducing himself. 

Enjoy listening!

 

 


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