矯正醫生的狂想曲--- Straight teeth and life

****醫師们雖然致力於拯救、延長及改善患者生命，卻很少詢問患者人生的意義! 下面這篇文章, 或許能給我們醫療從業者一些”治療”之外的自省！ 其實臺灣家屬只偏重”延長”患者生命，不管生活品質(quality of life)的觀念，也該轉變！

-----"What has given your life meaning so far, and what do you hope will give it meaning in the future?"

  <The Meaning of Life in Medicine> Posted 06/06/2008

Professor of Psychiatry, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 Even though we physicians are dedicated to saving, prolonging, and improving the lives of our patients, we often don't ask about what gives their lives meaning.^[1] I know that I, as a patient, have never been asked that. Even Dr. Kevorkian apparently did not ask that kind of question to people before assisting them to die.^[2] In not doing so, we physicians may be missing an important opportunity. The rise of public interest in spirituality suggests that people are indeed looking more than ever to find meaning in their lives.

Some physicians lead the way. Dr. Breitbart has found that asking terminally ill cancer patients to focus on 4 sources of meaning helped them to dramatically reduce their requests for assistance in dying.^[3] These sources are:

• creativity;創造力
• reviewing experiences；經驗回顧
• a positive attitude; and 正面的態度
• one's perceived legacy.對遺產的認知

Dr. Van Pelt has successfully done something similar with adolescent patients as well as those with headaches.^[4]  I have recently begun to do so successfully with my new psychiatry patients, either in the interview or with a simple homework question of "What has given your life meaning so far, and what do you hope will give it meaning in the future?"

There are many ways that such a 2-part question can help almost any patient. First of all, it can help us to connect treatment to what is important to each patient. It also can strengthen the patient-physician relationship in a time of brief visits. And it can deepen our own understanding of the meaning of our own lives.

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