The patient–doctor partnership

Editor – It was very interesting to read Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick's excellent paper (Clin Med December 2008 pp 573–5). She is absolutely right that the patient– doctor partnership ‘should be the cornerstone in any healthcare service’.

Having practised as a clinical haematologist for 30 years, I realised that getting the partnership between myself and my patients right was by far the most important priority in my professional life. If the doctor is really at pains to see that the partnership is working, then everything else falls into place, and the patient receives the best care available. If the partnership is working, the doctor will see to it that their colleagues at every level are people the patients feel they can trust, and the patients are usually grateful whatever the clinical outcome. Furthermore, when mistakes are made, as unfortunately they are even in the best-run institutions, the patient is far more likely to be accepting and understanding than litigious and belligerent. The fact that nowadays patients are so much better informed enhances, rather than detracts from, the partnership.

I was fortunate to work in a specialty where many of the patients had medically (as opposed to surgically) the most treatable malignancies, but the above considerations apply equally to patients with non-malignant diseases. The patient–doctor partnership is of infinitely greater importance than, for example, the type of building we practise in, new or old, polyclinic or hospital. Dame Margaret's ‘solution’ in her final paragraph is entirely correct – the sooner changes can be brought about to achieve this, the better. If these issues were addressed, morale would improve automatically and many of the current problems would be solved.

• © 2009 Royal College of Physicians