A Study On The Doctor-patient Relationship Based On The Social Role Theory

Since the reform and opening up, the society and the economy of China have madetremendous progress. However, the medical industry accidents happened frequentlyaccompanied with the reform of the health care system in China, and the conflictsbetween doctors and patients has become a crucial livelihood issue, which stronglyaffects the building of the harmonious society. Because the socio-economic system,the social structure, and the concept of the doctors and the patients have been changedsignificantly, it is necessary to elucidate the issues of the doctor-patient relationship(DPR) at this stage and to further explore the countermeasures to build theharmonious DPR, in order to provide useful policy recommendations for thelivelihood building in the field of the health care in China.Firstly, this study mainly reviewed the research progress of the DPR between thedeveloped countries and China from three aspects: the sociological theory, thedoctor-patient communication, and the medical security system. In the developedcountries, the studies of the DPR are in more depth with more mature theoreticalsystem and more clear legal definition; the medical security systems are relativelysound, the situation of the DPR is better than that in China. The bibliometric analysisdemonstrated that the studies of the DPR in China has made considerabledevelopment from1984to2013, and the past30years can be divided into threerepresent research stages, which are in agreement with the course of the health carereform. There were some limitations in the concepts, methods, and teams of studies ofthe DPR in China, and no mature theoretical system in China. Moreover, thetheoretical studies of the DPR in China are mainly based on the foreign theory system,and most of the studies are concentrated in a particular aspect of the DPR. There werefew reports with comprehensive study the development and the changes of the DPR inChina.Secondly, the literatures on the DPR were retrieved from Web of Sciencedatabase to illustrate the Social Role Theory (SRT) and the DPR modes, and theadaptability of the SRT to resolve the DPR was also discussed. Thirdly, the legal property of the DPR was defined as the civil legal relations anda classical case of the medical malpractice that Dr. Wen Xu in Beijing TongrenHospital was chopped wound by the patient named Baoming Wang, was analyzed indetail to uncover the possible causes of this tragedy. Combined the researches indeveloped countries and in China and the public statistics on the Chinese healthsystem, night different parts according to the SRT including doctors, patients, thedoctor-patient communication, medical costs, the hospital management, the socialpsychology, the public opinion environment, the professional ethics, and functions ofthe government, which potentially affects the building of the harmoniousdoctor-patient relationship, were described in detail.The harmonious DPR was based on the collaboration among doctors, patients,hospitals, and the government. To achieve this purpose, various strategies should beconducted, such as improving the service quality of doctors and hospitals, establishingpublic health care platforms to overcome the information asymmetry between doctorsand patients, increasing the popularity of the medical knowledge to promotedoctor-patient communication, increasing government investments in the medicalindustry to improve the health care system and distributing rationally the medicalresources, strengthening the hospital management to improve the medical disputeresolution mechanism, reinforcing the building of professional ethics to construct apatient-centered service model.