Today´s medical self and the other: Challenges and evolving solutions for enhanced humanization and quality of care.

• Main Authors: Perla Sueiras, Victoria Romano-Betech, Alejandro Vergil-Salgado, Adalberto de Hoyos, Silvia Quintana-Vargas, William Ruddick, Anaclara Castro-Santana, Sergio Islas-Andrade, Nelly F Altamirano-Bustamante, Myriam M Altamirano-Bustamante
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5536364?pdf=render

Recent scientific developments, along with growing awareness of cultural and social diversity, have led to a continuously growing range of available treatment options; however, such developments occasionally lead to an undesirable imbalance between science, technology and humanism in clinical practice. This study explores the understanding and practice of values and value clusters in real-life clinical settings, as well as their role in the humanization of medicine and its institutions. The research focuses on the values of clinical practice as a means of finding ways to enhance the pairing of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) with Values-based Medicine (VBM) in daily practice.The views and representations of clinical practice in 15 pre-CME and 15 post-CME interviews were obtained from a random sampling of active healthcare professionals. These views were then identified and qualitatively analyzed using a three-step hermeneutical approach. A clinical values space was identified in which ethical and epistemic values emerge, grow and develop within the biomedical, ethical, and socio-economic dimensions of everyday health care. Three main values-as well as the dynamic clusters and networks that they tend to form-were recognized: healthcare personnel-patient relationships, empathy, and respect. An examination of the interviews suggested that an adequate conceptualization of values leads to the formation of a wider axiological system. The role of clinician-as-consociate emerged as an ideal for achieving medical excellence.By showing the intricate clusters and networks into which values are interwoven, our analysis suggests methods for fine-tuning educational interventions so they can lead to demonstrable changes in attitudes and practices.