Patient-Physician Interactions with Minority Communities

Abstract

While there are many studies that highlight lack of access as a barrier to healthcare for minority communities, fewer studies examine the actual patient-physician interactions that occur in the doctor’s office. This thesis examines patient-physician interactions as reported by patients and physicians, aiming at accounting for their experiences in the general context of healthcare service. Five important topics were discovered within the literature, and these topics were used as the background to generate patient interview questions and physician questionnaires (surveys). The topics were as follows: general information on diversity and accessibility of medical practice, patient-physician interactions, translation services, medical interpreter services, and the medical community. Through the responses of these interviews/questionnaires, three main themes were revealed as relevant: 1.) Patients’ reported experiences about their interactions with the doctors and the healthcare system, 2.) What doctors know and understand about the minority communities they are serving, and 3.) Potential best practices for health care professionals to better serve minority and unprivileged communities (as referred by patients and physicians). These themes and their various subthemes were analyzed and used to generate various proposals and future directions of patient-physician research.