Care-Givers: Is the white coat changing colour?

Have modern doctors forgotten the traditional components of treatment - caring, comforting and a humane approach towards their patients? Vasanti Sundaram, who met a few doctors, finds that despite some dissent, the doctor-patient bond is still strong

I've been told that the modern doctor-patient relationship is a contract - the patient comes to the doctor, receives a service, pays for the service, leaves. Older physicians have felt that the doctor-patient relationship is a pledge, a promise of continued responsibility not only for the visit, but for the course of the illness, if not a lifetime.

Is this transition true? Has the relationship between a doctor and patient shifted from that of the healer and healed to that of a service provider and client? In the name of being professionals, have doctors forgotten the essential ingredients of treatment - touching, hugging, caring, comforting, laughing and sharing their humanity with their patients?

In wearing the white coat, in uttering the medical jargon, in doing rather than being, have doctors perfected the art of clinical distancing from their patients with little or no time to find out who they really are, and what their disease means to them in their lives?

Friday talks to four doctors, and dissects the doctor-patient relationship that is at the heart of clinical practice. A relationship that is influenced by a number of factors - cultural, social, economic and psychological - each of which exerts a potent influence on the patient's response to illness.