NAOP Conference Dec. - 2010, Emerging Role of Psychological Skills for Medical Profession

In India there are about 315 medical colleges which are rendering training for medical practitioners across the country.  The practice of medicine is based on application of science for the improvement of human health.  Medical practice is an art which mandates empathy and compassion.  It requires much more than the coldness often associated with analytical minds.  Dealing with human lives can’t be an isolated act of scientific understanding rather it requires a combination of psychological attribute and sound scientific temperament.  Science and medicine can’t exist without any social and cultural context.  The psyche and culture interacts with the individual’s experience of illness and suffering.  The application of psychology can combine characteristics of empathy, self-reflection, emotional maturity, inter-personal skills along with scientific temperament can produce well-rounded and caring healers.  There can’t be a single good formula for what will make a good doctor.  Issues like stigma, social expectations, gender bias, the problems of the aged have a huge impact on seeking medical help and compliance with the treatments.  An understanding of patients choice and constant are of vital importance in the process of road to recovery.  The absence of communication and counselling training for doctors leads to a trend of single minded pursuit of cures for the diseases.  This fashionable focus on pathology and a belief that medicines alone can cure might bring immediate relief but developing an insight among the patient can lead to long-term solutions to our problems.  The life-style problems is also posing a major threat to our health and it can be improved through psychological reflections of our problems.  Therefore the role of psychology and begins from broader awareness of the problem and permeates to recovery of our medical problems with better use of psychological skills by our health care professionals.  The art of medicine can become more meaningful with a better understanding of psychological principles and not be surprised that it should comprise the compulsory training for doctors in medical profession.

            With the help of this presentation the necessity of psychological skills for medical profession would be highlighted to provide a comprehensive approach for well-being of individuals.