Doctor and Patient Relationship

The doctor-patient relationship always has been and will remain an essential basis of care, in which high quality information is gathered and procedures are made as well as provided. This relationship is a critical foundation to medical ethics that all doctors should attempt to follow and live by. Patients must also have confidence in their physicians to trust the solutions and work around created to counter act certain illnesses and disease. Doctor-patient relationships can directly be observed in both the stories and poems of Dr. William Carlos Williams as well as in the clinical tales of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Both of these doctors have very similar and diverse relationships with multiple patients in term change the way they go about clinically healing them.

In the stories of Dr. William Carlos Williams the reader relives the experiences of different patients through the eyes of Dr. W.C Williams. After each story the reader gets a clear understanding of the feelings Dr. W.C Williams as it is expressed in his writing. One of the first stories the reader experiences is called “Mind and Body”. In this story Dr. W.C Williams is confronted with a disillusioned woman named Ingrid. She comes to him because she believes that she is suffering from an early stage of cancer. The relationship between the doctor and patient is faintly seen as any sort of connection. This is seen as throughout the reading, the speaker’s voice continually changes between the doctor and the patient; this comes down to a unstable set of communication. The woman constantly changes topics and continues to ramble even as the doctor is trying to figure out a diagnosis. Through the perspective of the doctor, it is described that the woman looks rather healthy and young. This is a complete contrast to what the woman is describing how she feels. In this situation it is difficult to properly gather quality information to figure out a solution when the relationship is not quite there. The next story “Use of Force” best describes the type of doctor to patient relationship in this story.

This reading is another example of what a doctor to patient relationship should not be. What makes this story unlike the others is the patient is a very young girl who is more scared than worried on her condition. The doctor to patient relationship is based on a lie. The doctor was unable to examine his patient due to the young girl not allowing him to check out her throat. In a desperate action the young girl’s parents state “Look what you’ve done. The nice man…” interrupting the doctor jumps in saying, “Don’t call me a nice man to her.”(pg58 Williams). At this point in the story, it shows that the relationship is based on a strict Doctor to child basis and there is an only business related property to solve her sickness. The next story is called “The Girl with the Pimply Face”. W.C Williams comes to a house to look at a sick baby; meanwhile the only person home is a young girl. This situation seems like a puzzle solving problem for the doctor.

As he comes to see the baby he asks the young girl if there are any problems with the baby; in response the girl said she doesn’t know. The reader can feel his confusion as he states “…said the girl as fresh as paint and seeming about as indifferent as through it bad been no relative of hers…”(pg43 Williams). This continues throughout the story as the doctor asks questions he receives the same response of un-clarity and lack of desire. This story has a different form of doctor to patient relationship, as the focus of the story is on the young girl who is not his patient. As shown in The Doctor Stories W.C Williams has many different types of doctor to patient relationships. The most important factor to solving all of his patient’s conditions is focused on the relationship he makes with them, no matter how large or small of a connection there is.

The next series is a book called The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a collection of clinical tales by Oliver Sacks. Most of Oliver Sacks doctor to patient relationships are very personal. The first story is titled the same as the book. The patient is a older man named Dr. P who suffers from a vision impairment, but his illness lies further beneath the surface. Dr. P is a music teacher at a local school and music plays a huge influence in his life. Through the reading, it is shown how interested Dr. Oliver Sacks is in his relationship with Dr. P. Near the end of the story the patient asks Oliver Sacks what would he prescribe for him and the response given is “…I would prescribe, in a case such as yours, is a life which consists entirely of music.”(pg13 Sacks). This shows that the relationship between the doctor and patient is based more on what the patient can relate to and find easy to adapt with. Next is a story called “Hands”. The story is based on a sixty year old woman named Madeline, a blind persona that also suffers from cerebral palsy which leaved her un-capable to function with her hands. Madeleine is so used to having everyone do things for her, meanwhile she still has feelings in her hands; Oliver then decides to not starve her but let her grab the food on instinct to then soon find out she uses her hands to grab a bagel.

The way the story ends is she begins to ask for clay and molds what she in visions people’s faces and objects to look like and surprisingly comes out very close. It is as if one sense is lost the others increase in quality. This relationship is very similar to previous stories; Oliver takes his relationship with his patient to a personal level. The last story is called “On the Level” which is about a old man named Mr. MacGregor; who appears to be perfectly fine besides he begins to tilt when he walks. The strange part is the patient was unaware of his behavior until Dr. Oliver Sacks recorded his movement and played it back to him. What makes this story different than most cases is that Mr. MacGregor figured out his own solution without Oliver Sacks, but would still bring Oliver into his ideas and creations. At the end they built a balance in between his glasses which would give him a visual level to make sure that when he would walk it would be straight. What makes Oliver Sack’s relationships with his patients different than most is he takes their illnesses and or flaws and turns them into their best personal quality.

As seen in both William Carlos Williams and Oliver Sacks medical stories, the doctor to patient relationship plays a major role on not just the outcome but how to get there. From the stories of “Use of Force” which made a situation almost impossible to “On the Level” in which nothing was really done on the doctors behalf to come to not only a fantastic but memorable solution. With a great relationship quality answers and procedures come naturally between a doctor and a patient. These reasons all underlay why doctor to patient relationships are a basis to positive administration of medicine.