DEBATE. Healthcare rounds must be scrapped in order to protect patients. The statement is made by Jan Lötvall, Professor at Sahlgrenska Academy, who wants to give new fuel to the debate on privacy in health care. In a debate article in Dagens Nyheter, he shares his own experiences as a patient.
Photo: Magnus Gotander.
Jan Lötvall is a physician and professor of clinical allergology, but as he now throws himself into the debate, the starting point is somewhat different. He writes on the basis of personal experiences from his own hospital stay in Gothenburg.
He was admitted in a room with four hospital beds. In the bed next to Jan Lötvall, with a curtain in between, is a newly operated older woman. When the round sweeps in everyone in the room can hear the conversation between her and the doctor.
The woman asks if the cancer has spread. The doctor doesn’t want to answer the question until a loved one is in place. She asks again and the doctor responds in the end, somewhat reluctantly, that “Yes, it has spread, but maybe it’s better if we talk to you later with a family member present.”
The conversation continues, tand he woman’s anxiety is obvious to everyone in the room, and according to Jan Lötvall a situation arises that is not worthy of the otherwise high-quality care.
“I really believe that all the doctors who have participated in a round, know that there are ethical problems, and I really just want to raise the issue so that we begin to think this through a little better, to find other work forms”, he says .
“I have written this article as a patient, with some insight on how health care works. I do not think we’ve broken enough with the traditional round, which is a tradition since hundreds of years. It sits deep in medical practice and in medical culture”, says Jan Lötvall.
Here you can read the whole discussion post on Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish): http://www.dn.se/debatt/man-kan-inte-blunda-med-oronen-skrota-ronden-nu/
TEXT: MARGARETA GUSTAFSSON KUBISTA
