Dr. Christina Baik: Why Is It Important for You to Empower Patients?
Dr. Christina Baik: Why Is It Important for You to Empower Patients? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Why is it important to empower patients? Expert Dr. Christina Baik from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center shares her approach to patient care, educating patients, involving other care team members, and preparing patients for informed decisions.
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Transcript:
Dr. Christina Baik:
In my opinion, the best way to empower your patients is to really give them knowledge. Knowledge about their own disease so that they really understand what they’re dealing with, so that they can make decisions that are appropriate for them and their family and be consistent with their priorities.
So one thing that I run into a lot really is as simple as patients not understanding our treatment is palliative or curative. And many patients say, “If I knew this was a palliative treatment, I would have made a different decision about this particular treatment.” So really making sure that they understand their disease, they understand the intent of their treatment so that they can make the decisions that are right for them.
And also, really give them room to ask questions. I think this is really hard in a busy practice. So what I often do is, if it’s feasible is that if I know this is going to be a difficult visit, patients have many questions, and it’s gone…it could potentially be a long visit, then I would often involve my nurses and my nurse practitioners, so to kind of hear them out, understand what their questions are so that I can really address them when it’s time for my appointment. So I would say knowledge, really understanding their disease and making sure that they have all the information so that they’re making an informed decision.
