Search

The author examines the potential responses to external stressors in order to define the hallmarks of healthy coping with the September 11, 2001, attack and its aftermath. Observations from a [...]

In this article, an attempt is made to synthesize some insights drawn from the fields of narrative medicine and psychoanalysis regarding the caregiver–patient relationship. All experiences of care are viewed as having their root in the original parent–infant relationships, which take places in a complex matrix of empathic attunement and minutely engaged attention to the body and communications of the other. It is suggested that the Buddhist practice of upaya is a useful analogy for the kind of open attunement that is to be aspired to in relations of care, and how such an analogous framework may be helpful to clinicians in attending, thinking and feeling toward their patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to more fully integrate Michael Balint's vision of Patient Centered Medicine with the explosive emergence in the United States of issues of diversity and social determinants of health, the American Balint Society has placed a high priority to develop an explicit initiative designed to emphasize the importance of diversity issues in patient care. This initiative began with the discernment of a policy statement and has continued with interactive exercises at National meetings, first designed to create an understanding of the impact of marginalization and next to explore the responsibility and options for Balint Group leaders to guide their groups in considering the impact of diversity in the challenging doctor–patient relationships frequently presented to their groups. This article is a description of such an effort, including results and discussion of continued development of Balint Group leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its formal designation as a specialty in 1969, family medicine has embraced the concept of education in the doctor–patient relationship grounded in the principles of continuity and comprehensive care of families. As such, the influence of Balint groups on education has been ongoing and persistent, despite the vagaries of changing structures for education. However, in the United States, the focus has been heavily in resident education. As medicine has fragmented into narrow venues such as hospital care, urgent care, and subspecialty care in family medicine, physicians have become more disconnected physically and isolated from each other. Balint trained leaders and Balint groups—whether following the formal structure of traditional groups or serving as a safe place for conversations about the struggles in medicine and the meaning of the profession—have the opportunity to help heal the professional loneliness and isolation of physicians. Leaders and clinicians need to demand support for this idea in large health systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]