Table 4 Illustrative quotes about patient-provider relationships
From: Diabetes self-management among Arab Americans: patient and provider perspectives
Theme | Arab American Patient-Provider Communication and Clinical Relationships |
|---|---|
Illustrative Quotes | As a doctor they want to try to please you…they’ll try and come back and show you that…they did what they were supposed to do. [Group 2: Provider 2] The doctor has to direct the diabetic patient…, Now the physician, why should you cooperate with him? Because if he found that stored blood sugar is high, he renews the medication or decreases it or gives you. [Group 1: Patient 4] The physician and I are like a team. One month we might need to increase two or three units [of insulin]. The following month we might decrease it or increase it. The relationship between physician and patient needs to be good. So you all feel like you both care. Not only the physician, but also the patient, it is take and give. [Group 2: Patient 6] They have the belief that, with doctors, all the times they go there, they [physicians] make him sick; not by medications but by giving a new diagnosis. [Group 2: Provider 4] My doctor is the same [referring to another participant’s comment] if I don’t get sick, and I don’t visit him and ask him for blood sugar test every 3 months, he won’t do it. My doctor never calls me or asks me to come do lab tests for my blood sugar, unless I go by myself…I believe it was a cultural barrier, I think they just write prescription and that is it. The next time I went to the doctor, they do not ask me about the results or any of that. You know, they should ask. They don’t. [Group 3: Patient 4] |