What is going on here and now when a patient meets a family doctor? A P4 minded cybernetic observation of the consultation process.

Abstract

The consultation is a meeting between two human beings, where one is the patient, playing the part of the sick, while the other plays the therapeutic role. It is also a meeting between knowledge and feeling. The doctor's knowledge/thoughts (true or false) influences the thoughts/knowledge (true or false) of the patient, in a dialectical relationship. In a way, the patient-doctor encounter is a meeting between science and conscience fitted in the symbolic world of human beings. The term science, as it is used here, encompasses the knowledge of the biological, the mental and the social being, as well as the observation of what is going on here and now, a cybernetic observation of the consultation itself, in a manner of speaking. Through his or her training, the doctor inevitably confronts the patient with the disease. It is his or her job to reveal it. He or she will be gratified to have, at least, found the evil, by always pushing the limits of diagnostic exploration. In an attempt to know better about what we are doing, we will go through a recent work on the main themes discussed by GPs during congresses ( www.hetop.eu/Q ) to examine which ones are dealing with the Quaternary prevention concept. We will ask to the participants if and when Quaternary prevention could exert a deep influence throughout their consultation process and their patients care pathway