{"id":306530,"date":"2018-10-01T23:10:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T21:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/no-longer-a-silent-story\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:38:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:38:14","slug":"no-longer-a-silent-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/no-longer-a-silent-story\/","title":{"rendered":"No longer a silent story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cYears ago, the doctor-patient relationship used to be called \u2018a silent story.\u2019<\/strong> It was held that a good patient would follow a doctor\u2019s orders without objection, without asking questions,\u201d said Flavia Caretta, geriatric doctor at the A. Gemelli clinic in Rome and spokesperson for Health Dialogue Culture<\/a>. She was also one of the organizers of its most recent conference at Caruaru, in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, titled \u201cInterdisciplinary dialogue in building holistic health\u201d (23\u201325 August). Health Dialogue Culture connects medical professionals who, taking inspiration from Chiara Lubich<\/a>\u2019s spirituality of unity<\/a>, started a series of reflections and knowledge sharing about curing the sick and considering them holistically. Close to 400 professionals attended the conference from every part of Brazil. \u201cPatient dissatisfaction because of poor communication,\u201d observes Caretta, \u201cresults higher than almost any other dissatisfaction about technical competence. Technological culture has caused those in the know to specialize, yet this often fractures the patient\u2019s identity and the interpersonal relationships between those getting cured and those doing the curing. The risk is losing, or never even obtaining, the ability to see the infirm in their entirety\u2026 \u201cEach call for a cure brings with it a need for relationship. To ignore this aspect means to reduce medicine to simply applying techniques or offering a service, when above all it is a meeting with a person. \"\"<\/a>\u201cThe quality of the clinical conversation should not only depend on the application of scientific knowledge or the \u2018ability\u2019 of someone to communicate, but also their ability to enter in to what the patient is going through.<\/strong> The process of assisting them cannot just be considered a protocol to break down into procedures, because it implies a human dimension that is unpredictable and cannot be standardized, all mutually at play within the relationship. \u201cNo healing gesture has its complete effect without entering into relationship with the other<\/strong> \u2026 Among the new trends in medicine, in addition to communication and personalized cures, there is a new emphasis on lifestyle, to the role that community and society play in health, especially its spiritual side. \u201cI would like to offer some processes that have been trialed and shared by many professionals in different fields, different places in the world and cultures. They instill their lives, as well as their professions, with the values found in the Focolare spirituality\u2026 \u201cThese strategies have been proven to be effective in relating with patients. For example listening, which requires setting aside worries, judgements, hurried diagnoses, in order to make space for what the patient wants to communicate with words, expressions, and silence. \u201cSilence, too, is communication, and is sometimes more eloquent than anything to be understood in a conversation<\/strong>. There is also the commitment to succeed in identifying with the present moment, free from the hurry and conditions that could cloud the choices to make.\u201d \"\"<\/a>The consistency between spiritual values and applying them in a profession, highlighted Caretta, \u201cdoes not only concern our rapport with patients. It is more essential than ever to act together with other disciplines<\/strong>. Especially in the last few years, scientific journals aimed at improving health services and the quality of care emphasize a care team, teamwork, and a multidisciplinary approach\u2026 \u201cI remember something Vaclav Havel, poet and the first president of the Czech Republic, said: \u2018Hope is not believing that things will change. Hope is believing that you can make a difference.\u201d Reciprocity can transform every part of the health world, whether a health professional or patient, and every part of the academic world, whether student or scholar, to be agents of change.\u201d For contacts, news and research, see healthdialogueculture.org.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One recent trend in medicine is to give communication more of a central role. Geriatric doctor Flavia Caretta spoke about this at a recent conference in Caruaru, Brazil, organized by the Health Dialogue Culture international network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}