Distrust and communication in health care

It seems that at least some of the problems with communication in health care come down to distrust. Some people may not disclose information to their doctor because they feel like they can't trust their doctor. If the patient withholds information, the doctor may not have all the information they need to make a diagnosis. If a doctor senses a patient is not being being honest, he or she may be more guarded with the information he or she shares with the patient. And the communication problem perpetuates.

This is even a larger problem when it comes to medical research. Because of past medical research atrocities, such as the Tuskegee syphilis studies, many African Americans are inherently distrustful of medical research. I am now in the process of beginning some outreach efforts for our communication research project at MCW and because it involves sickle cell trait, we have to be even more deliberate in our efforts to reach out to the community. In the past, some have used sickle cell disease and even sickle cell trait as a reason to discriminate against African Americans for certain jobs, so it is easy to see why some people may potentially question our motives for wanting to talk to people about sickle cell disease.

This distrust of the medical establishment is ultimately one of the reasons why physician-patient communication research is so important. Better communication and better understanding can lead to greater trust between patients and physicians.