Searching for clarity
Reflections on health care
Searching for clarity: there’s a fitting synopsis of the average eye exam, and a nice description of optometry overall. Equipped with the tools and techniques of their profession, the doctor introduces various combinations of lenses to the patient’s eyes, working to bring an image to focus. In turn, the patient plays the role of diligent observer, letting the doctor know which particular lenses are the most effective. Throughout this process they work together as indispensable partners towards the goal of better vision, and for that reason, the search for clarity becomes a shared pursuit. Perhaps no other type of exam involves the same level of cooperation and interdependence between doctor and patient.
But beyond this literal meaning, the search for clarity can also be understood metaphorically. At the same time that the doctor provides visual clarity, they also provide clarity of mind: answers to patients’ questions, comfort in difficult times, and an understanding of their symptoms. The patient is mindful of this fact, and expects not only to be treated, but to be informed, educated, and advised. To provide clarity in this sense is to provide the patient with a helpful and empowered perspective on their own health, so that they leave the exam room with greater awareness and assurance than when they entered it.
Interpreted in this way, the search for clarity applies to every form of health care and underlies any effective doctor-patient relationship. The doctor’s role — whether they treat the eyes, the ears, the heart, or the lungs — goes beyond just treatment and includes clarification in the form of proper guidance and council. It’s for this reason that being a doctor requires more than just knowledge or technical skills: the doctor-in-training must also develop a competence for interacting with patients and an appreciation for his role as a guide and communicator.
This aspect of health care has taken something of a back-seat in the modern era. Today, quality health care is associated with the latest and greatest in scientific and technological progress. Infections are subdued by new vaccines and antibiotics, failing organs are duly replaced, and artificial joints and bones are routinely manufactured and implanted. Prominent as they are in the public imagination, these miraculous and innovative treatments shift the popular conception of health care, making it synonymous with the triumph over disease and bodily wear.
Of course, health care is greatly indebted to these developments. In those countries privileged enough to access them, mortality rates have declined precipitously while the average life-span continues to rise. For a growing number of societies problems like widespread child mortality and sudden epidemics are tragedies of a bygone era. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that we’ve entered a totally new age of health care, one that has provided the best conditions for well-being and human flourishing, as we continue to push the limits of our viability and freedom from sickness.
But to define health in the narrow sense of prolonging life and treating disease is short-sighted. Take the simple example of a person who exhibits what we would call unhealthy habits: poor sleep, a high fat and sugar diet, and a tendency for chronic and unrelenting stress. Such a person might be free of all diseases, and yet we would hesitate to call him healthy. That’s to say, when viewed with some scrutiny, health appears less like the absence of any particular ailment and more like a certain lifestyle. Accordingly, to provide adequate health care means more than just directing attention at a specific disease, but directing attention towards the whole patient: their beliefs, their attitudes, their life conditions, and so on.
This is the important aspect of health care addressed by the doctor who acts as a guide and counselor. Only by forming a partnership with the patient can the doctor encourage them to consider their health outside the exam room. Inspired by this new outlook, the patient is empowered to take their health into their own hands, becoming an active participant in their own well-being. For that reason, their visit to the exam room is prompted by a desire to find that kind of relationship, and this is the alternative meaning of the term searching for clarity.
