Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari

But that was the conversation that we ended up having with the parents in order to determine the right path to take for this teenager.

I mean, it's a huge part of medical training that at least when I was going through my training, and I know that things have improved, I know things are getting better here, but it wasn't a big part of my training.

I actually was explaining to somebody the other day that nobody taught me how to tell a woman or two parents that I had just done an ultrasound and the baby didn't have a heartbeat because that is something we encounter more often than anybody would like to think.

And I had to do that for the first time once I got out of my training and I did an ultrasound and I had to walk back into the room and let that family know that their baby wasn't going to survive the pregnancy.

And so in order to do that well, I think we have to first be listeners.

I think we have to learn from our patients and we have to pay attention to the stories they're telling.

I think we have to have an awareness of where they're coming from.

And I think that patient-centered communication is the key to humanistic care.

We really have to listen to our patients' needs.

And historically, a lot of times, medical care is a top-down approach with the physician as the expert.

And that doesn't always keep in mind that patients also come in with their own needs.

And there can be conversations.

Informed consent is something we learn about, but true informed consent is really letting your patient understand what their condition is, what their options are, and then engaging in conversation to make a decision about which path to take.

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, there's a financial tradeoff.

When you see one patient at a time and you don't have three people in a room, you probably see a third as many patients.

So there's a real professional satisfaction in that.

It doesn't really have the return that people will need in order to keep businesses running, right?

So there's that piece of it that's interesting and a constant ongoing interest.

challenge for the clinic.

But there was skepticism, I would say.