INTRODUCTION
The ability to offer individualised care to patients remains a key component of general practice. This is more important now than ever, given that the care we provide as GPs is likely to involve less face-to-face contact even once the threat of COVID-19 has passed. Many consultation frameworks address only generic skills and largely ignore the extent to which the clinician is able to establish a human connection, to understand what an illness means to their patient and to help them navigate through it, particularly when there is uncertainty and complexity within the consultation. This person-centred approach is the bedrock upon which general practice was founded and deserves further analysis. In this article, we introduce a new four-domain model to describe the skills and approaches needed by clinicians in order to encourage consultations that are individualised and create meaning for both patient and clinician. This model could help to guide training, as well as validating these consultation skills for practising clinicians.
WHOLE-PERSON CARE
Iona Heath reminds us that ‘clinicians must see and hear each patient in the fullness of his or her humanity in order to minimise fear, to locate hope (however limited), to explain symptoms and diagnoses in language that makes sense to the particular patient, to witness courage and endurance, and to accompany suffering’.1
In an interview recorded before his death in 2011,2 Dr Kieran Sweeney, a retired GP and Professor of Primary Care, poignantly described what was missing in the outwardly …
RCGP login
Members, please Login at RCGP to access the journal online.
Subscriber login
Enter your BJGP login information below.
Log in using your username and password
Log in through your institution
Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$35.00
Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.