Larger trends in medicine have made it increasingly difficult to deliver such social niceties, experts say. Many hospital budgets are tight, and nurses are spread thin: shortages are running at 15 percent to 20 percent in some areas of the country. Average hospital stays have also shortened in recent years, making it harder for patients to build any rapport with staff, or vice versa.” (New York Times )
Yes, but don’t stray too far from identifying the central factor — the erosion in bedside manner on the part of physicians, which is a result of productivity pressures but also deficiencies in curriculum design in medical schools and, indeed, in the criteria used to select medical students in the first place. These failings, in turn, reflect the depreciation of compassion as a societal value and the impact of that change on shaping aspirations to and expectations of a medical career.
