A good doctor should know how best to treat a patient within the limits of the prevalent realities and should stick to the ethics of his/her profession like confidentiality.

I agree with Prof Ette Etuk, above. I was a nurse practitioner and also interviewed participants for my research about their experience of 'being patients', and I heard what they thought about their medical doctors and surgeons. It appeared that they really  appreciated being treated as an individual; different patients needed a different approach. I didn't get the impression that this always happened, but do realise that there are time constraints, and that there are often too many people to see in too short a time, and that doctors are busy people.    

Dear Rainer.

What makes a good doctor -- who ask --?

As a see it, first of all a good doctor should be competent in either scientific and technological terms. If this were not the case, then s/he would be no doctor at all. In other words, a good doctor should know how to treat medically his/her patients, while sticking to the ethic or deontological duties of his/her profession. I would call this aspect the technical or treatment component of both doctors and nurses. In addition to this, there is also, say, a caring component that a good doctor should have. That is, a good doctor should treat each of his/her patients as a human individual who is unique in physical and psychological terms. I would call this aspect the caring and psychological component of both doctors and nurses. 

There was a time at which a good doctor was judged to be good only in terms of his/her professional competence to know how to treat his/her patients, that is, in terms of the technical and treatment component involved in any medical  profession. Fortunately, nowadays, a good doctor has to be good in both the treatment  or technical component and the caring or psychological component. To sum up, a good doctor has to know quite well how to treat and how to care. It should be mentioned that nurse Florence Nothingale was ahead of his time while advocating a caring dimension in nursing, and hence, in any medical professional,

I hope I has got your question and that this helps

Best regards, Orlando

Mr Spiegel,

About your question, I summarize it in 5 points:

- To be very human and to understand the patient

- To be updated

- Being teamwork

- To be very ethical

- Being a good doctor is the one who enjoys and loves his pofesion

Dear Prof. Etuk,

Thank you very much for your answer. This is a great summary.

Best wishes,

Rainer

Dear Prof. Wilson,

Thank you very much for your answer. The opinion of you as a former nurse practitioner as well as a researcher who interviewed patients is extremely valuable.

Best wishes,

Rainer 

Dear Prof. Lourenço,

Thank you very much for your answer. I very much appreciate your summary about both the psychological/caring component and the treatment/technical component. I completely agree that both are very relevant.

Best wishes,

Rainer

Dear Prof. Tamura,

Thank you very much for your summary of the 5 main points. I appreciate this a lot and agree that all 5 points are very relevant.

Best wishes,

Rainer

Dear Dr Rainer Spiegel,

It is a great question. It is perhaps best to look at the attributes of a "Good Doctor" from a patients perspective and it is best described by 5 A's. 

Accesible: A Good Doctor must be accessible. Either in person or in any other way (say email) so that the patient knows he/she can approach the Doctor without hesitation.

Available: This refers to Physical availability. Doctors can be available but not accessible. Accessibility is thus more of a qualitative attribute.

Able: This refers to the core domain of knowledge, skills and decision making abilities. Of course competence is a must and a given attribute.

Affable: If the above three qualities come with a smile on the face, it is fantastic. A smile is the shortest distance between two people and in our profession the easiest tool to diminish patient's apprehension.

Affordable: As affordable as possible.

I think the sequence is as important. One might wonder why "Able" comes at third spot. It is my belief that for 90% of all hospital consultations are covered by under 100 diseases. For these common illnesses, almost 95% of all Doctors are quite able. The ability increases in an exponential way for the last 10% of consults that comprise thousands of illnesses (of increasing difficulty and rarity). 

In simple words, most Doctors have adequate ability to handle the common problems in their appropriate setting.

regards

Dr Shankar

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26690400_Learning_to_be_a_midwife

Article Learning to be a midwife

Dear Dr Shankar,

thank you very much for this great answer. I appreciate it a lot. These are all very relevant points.

Best wishes,

Rainer

Dear Dr Cohain,

thank you very much for sharing your great article on learning to be a midwife. I especially like the passage where you describe how unique and important the moment of birth is for every individual mother; and the challenge this involves for everyone helping with the birth.

Best wishes,

Rainer

Dear Dr Spiege,

i believe that a good Doctor must be one who treats all patients and staff with respect and dignity. They recognise that patients are people who are experiencing the possible worst time of their life, and the Doctors approach to them can make a significant difference to their experience. I also believe that a good Doctor is one who can recognise their limitations and is open to help and suggestions.

Kind regards,

Erin Pollard

The General Medical Council in the UK publish 'Good medical practice' which they hope summaries the key requirements of practising well as a doctor in the UK.

http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_practice.asp

Dear Dr Pollard,

thank you very much for your answer, which is very much appreciated. I completely agree with your thoughts.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Kelly,

thank you very much for sending the link to the General Medical Council's "Good Medical Practice". I appreciate this a lot. The website you are referring to provides most relevant information.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

System errors obliterate clinical excellence. Technical virtuosity of the university without humanism drives patients to faith healers. Reductionists cannot understAnd why. Also us Huxley- Brave New World

Dear Dr Rodney,

thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your opinion about system errors, technical aspects and particularly humanism a lot.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

A friend of mine had this advice for

a good medical doctor from his mentor.

- diposability

- being able to listen

- the right treatment

(not necessarily the most expensive or 'best')

- misericordia

Regards,

Joachim

Dear Dr. Pimiskern,

thank you very much for your answer, which is very much appreciated.

I agree with all points.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

he should be able to diagnose and treat.

Dear Rainer,

A good doctor is:

A good listener who patiently shows by his/her rapt attention by looking intently in the face while showing visual signs of listening from the heart when patients are telling him/her their health problems and how they feel indicating that s/he genuinely care.

A comforter who puts himself/herself in the shoes of his/her patients while showing extreme understanding of their health condition that haunts them without using verbal abuse on patients when they demonstrate great fear about their health condition.

Someone who builds with his/her words and general demeanor, constantly assuring the patient with encouraging words that his/her condition would be better without compromising on the true health condition of the patient.

S/he is committed to bringing relief to ailing persons and their disturbed relatives and friends who are sometimes overburdened and even paint signs of hopelessness and giving up on the patient's condition.

A good doctor is an expert in his/her field of health care and seeks for various avenues to upgrade and improve his/her expertise in health care delivery.

S/he is very reliable and avails himself/herself to patient care even prioritizing it ahead of their own personal comfort.

Thanks

Dickson Adom

After 35 years, i just finally had a new brain storm.  You all probably figured this out long ago:  If I find myself repeating the same thing over and over to the client, about 30 minutes or more of repeating the same thing, in an effort to make them understand, it means they are just pretending to listen, but have no intent of following my recommendation.     Finally figured that out! 

Dear All.

From the pevious answers, I got the  the impression that in a more or less explicit manner all answers point to two dimensions that a good doctor sould possess To be competent in his/her área of specialization such that his/her diagnoses are correct, and his/her treatmnet techiques are effective. However, a good doctor has to be more than his/her ability to make correct diagnoses and prescribe appropriate treatment techniques.

 As I said in a previous answer, this ability may be considered the professional or scientific dimension of a good doctor. In additition to this scientific and professional ability, a good doctor should have a caring or human dimension, that is, an ability to treat his/her patients with respect and dignity. If a doctor is not scientifically competent s/he is no doctor at all. If s/he does not treat his/her patients with respect and dignity, then the doctor looks like more, say, an expert and knowledgeable machine than a compassionate and caring figure. I can see this caring and human dimension of a good doctor in the following quotation: "Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there also is love of humanity" (see Hippocrates, Aforims).  If this caring and human dimension is absent, then we can say, Like Benjamim Franklin once noted, that "God heals and the doctor takes the fees" (Poor Richard's Almanac). When this is the case, doctors treat their patients more as clients than patients. Thus, a good doctor has patients; a bad doctor has clients.

Best regards,

Orland

Dear Dr Sircar,

thank you very much for your opinion, which is very much appreciated. I agree that s/he should be able to diagnose and treat diseases.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Aljaradin,

thank you very much for your opinion, which I appreciate a lot. I agree that being experienced and showing empathy (I guess that's what you imply by an experienced and human heart) is indeed essential.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Adom,

thank you very much for your detailed opinion, which I appreciate a lot. I agree with all the points you mention, especially being a good listener, a comforter, being honest while at the same time encouraging the patient, involving the relatives of the patient, being an expert in her/his field committed to lifelong learning, and being reliable. 

Thank you again, best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Cohain,

Thank you very much for sharing your personal experience. I sometimes realize that patients are experiencing such a hard time that they cannot concentrate on listening. It Maybe they pretend to listen because they do not want to appear rude, but in fact they are facing a really hard time emotionally which prevents them from remembering later on.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Lourenço,

thank you very much for your summary and for adding the quotes. I appreciate both a lot. I agree that both the scientific as well as the caring dimensions are very important and very valuable.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Love towards humanity-- a good human being with a strong soul .

Dear Dr Gilani,

thanks very much for your reply, which I appreciate a lot. I agree that love towards humanity, a strong soul and a good human being are essential.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Rainer,

According to my previous answers, a good doctor is a physician who knows well how to treat his/her patients in scientific and technical terms -- the competence component -- and deals with them in humane terms -- the caring component, As Hippocrates once said in his Aphorisms, "Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is love of humanity". I believe that these two componentes lie at the heart of medicine both as an art and a science. I also think that these two componentes apply to all áreas of clinical practice.

Best regards.

Dear Dr Lourenço,

Thank you very much for your continuous replies. I appreciate this a lot. I like your citation of Hippocrates, and I totally agree that a competence component and a caring component are both necessary.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Rainer Spiegel.

Thank you very much for the positive tone of your answer. Indeed, the two-components moded seems to capture what is esseential in a good doctor. Caring without medical  knowledge would be, say, blind charity. Medical knowledge without caring would be, say, desembodied or empty knowledge. Of course, I also like my citation of Hippocrates, As it refers to medicine as an art, knowledge is involved. As it refers to love of humanity, caring is also taken into account.

Best wishes and kind regards.

Orlando

Dear Orlando,

Thanks very much for your message. The points you mention sound excellent. I totally agree.

Take care,

Rainer

Thank you all vey much again for being part of this wonderful discussion.

Take care,

Rainer

Good doctors are good listeners of their patients' ramblings even if it does not make sense... They do this to show how much they care for them. Best regards

Dickson Adom

Dedication and hard work with love to serve humanity

A good doctor is one who gives you comfort not only by his treatment but also by his behavior.

A doctor might have seen so many patients  but for any patient he is the only doctor. Doctors should always keep this in mind and explain the problem properly to the patient, clearing all his doubts, console him, give him courage to face the problem and treat the person like his own family member, so that  they are comfortable in their presence.

Dear Dr Srinivas,

thank you very much for your great efforts.  Thank you particularly for the alphabetical list and the references. I appreciate this a lot. I agree with everything.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Adom,

thank you very much for your reply. I totally agree about the importance of being a good listener.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Gilani,

I like your concise summary "Dedication and hard work with love to serve humanity". I think this is a very good description.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear Dr Latha,

I totally agree about the importance of giving comfort not only by treatment but also by behaviour. I think this is a very good description of what makes a good doctor. She or he should explain the problem in a way that the patient understands it, as you suggest. I think these communication skills are indeed very important.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Rainer

Dear all,

thank you again for all your contributions. I value and appreciate them a lot.

Yours sincerely,

Rainer