ARTE Student Module 2 - Understanding the Process of Care
Objective
Open up the intellectual and emotional processes involved in family medicine patient care.
Tacit Expertise
Medical practice is based on both evidence and expertise. Excellent training and practice experience help physicians build a wealth of expertise. This knowledge is often harder to teach and to learn than biomedical facts. Part of the job of learning medicine is to learn how to find the facts, evaluate the evidence and tap into the expertise of more senior physicians.
Examples of the tacit knowledge essential in family medicine:
- Working at the boundary of uncertainty
- Using longitudinal patient knowledge in diagnosis and management.
- It’s OK to not know everything.
- When it is best to NOT do something.
- Comprehensive care - “keeping many balls in the air”
- Assessing risk and integrating it into the plan
- Managing doctor-patient relationships
- How to know when a patient is SICK.
- Combining biopsychosocial and EBM approaches in care of the patient