Module 2- SOAP

[Asil Daoud]

It is increasingly recognized that a physician’s unconscious emotional reactions to a patient or circumstance may interfere with achieving proper diagnosis and decision making. Examples in which patients are sometimes prejudged or their symptoms dismissed without sufficient evaluation include those patients with existing health conditions such as mental illness, alcohol and other substance abuse, obesity, certain communicable diseases, a history of noncompliance to treatments, or frequent previous visits perceived to be for trivial reasons. Individuals from different cultures or of certain sexual orientations or with poor socio-economic status may also be a trigger.

Physicians can gain new insights and set aside personal biases and prejudices by learning more about specific issues or about patient groups. For example, physicians may decide to learn more about the health issues or risk factors among new immigrants of a particular ethnicity, or patients who hold religious beliefs that may affect their healthcare choices and decisions. Continuing medical education on specific health issues common to a particular patient population may also be valuable.

Certain prejudices are clearly recognized as discriminatory in Canadian society and discrimination is prohibited by law. For example, discrimination against gender, race, age, disability, and sexual orientation is not permitted.

Beneficence and social justice — fundamental principles of medical practice — require doctors to work toward eliminating discrimination in healthcare and respecting patients’ human rights.

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