The "kidney in room 12" should be allowed to be human again

What leads to a good cure? Prof Jan Bonhoeffer, MD, dares to question what is taken for granted. He is convinced that one central component is being neglected in today's framework conditions and the working methods commonly used by healthcare professionals. In Interview with SRF Regionaljournal Basel he says: «As my experience grew, I increasingly realised that it's not just what led me into the profession and what I've acquired in terms of professional expertise that counts, but also how important the interpersonal component is. And I realised that this component is becoming less and less important in the healthcare sector.»

The main obstacle is financial pressure, accompanied by measures to increase efficiency. In addition, the past 200 years of research have brought enormous progress, from which we can all benefit. However, the principle of scientific objectivity leads to a professional distance that sometimes seems overly technical at the patient's bedside. If a patient becomes a «kidney in room 12», how can they still be heard as a human being, let alone understood?

Time for a rethink

Without expertise, no cure. That is clear. But how important is the human component? Experienced doctors say that it is about as important as the professional one. And that is why Bonhoeffer says that healthcare professionals need the courage to be truly open-hearted with their patients. A doctor is no better at their job if they try to keep a professional distance from their patient's fate in the first place. «I know that there are certainly ways to deal professionally with strong impressions, strong feelings and sympathy,» says Bonhoeffer.

It is precisely these ways that he tries to convey in his book «Dare to Care». This book contains 16 teaching pieces. Written as letters to his goddaughter, who has since become a junior doctor herself. She was his real motivation for writing down all the things that he had not learnt during his training and that have proved to be immensely important in his professional life. They are very central: Humanity, openness and love - also for himself as a healthcare professional.

«I think we have a very human environment at UKBB,» says Bonhoeffer. But generally speaking, the figures are alarming: «90 per cent of healthcare professionals start out with enthusiasm - and at the end of their career, 70 per cent advise their children not to follow this path.» Soon every second medical student will show symptoms of burnout by the end of their studies and the suicide rate among healthcare professionals is alarmingly high. Bonhoeffer therefore believes: «It's time to rethink the way we practise medicine and how we create a more humane environment for patients and professionals again.»

This is also what the global NetworkHeart-Based Medicine achieve. Bonhoeffer initiated it. The aim of this network is to impart techniques to healthcare professionals that enable more humane medicine under the existing framework conditions, for both healthcare professionals and patients. It is intended to encourage healthcare professionals to rekindle the spark within themselves that originally brought them into their profession with people.

Time for the human touch

«Taking time for the patient is worthwhile,» says Bonhoeffer. Those who listen carefully from the outset, who fully understand where the shoe pinches and who can clarify with the patient's family how they want to work together, save a huge amount of time afterwards. «This creates a relationship of trust and a level of information that allows me to carry out far fewer examinations, involve far fewer specialists, generate far fewer costs and actually save a lot of time and therefore costs.»

For Bonhoeffer, healing is a more profound process than treatment alone. «When I ask the children who are able to leave the hospital what helped them the most, they rarely say »the tablet' or 'the infusion'. What they usually say is 'my mum's hand' or 'the nurse who sat with me at night'. These are the experiences where the children have a profound healing experience."

Bonhoeffer's commitment to greater humanity in the healthcare professions has not yet met with a receptive ear everywhere in his profession. However, he sees many indications in studies from various disciplines that encourage him in his mission. He refers, for example, to the well-known «therapist effect» in psychology or to findings on how meditation exercises can influence our nervous system, circulation, hormone status and metabolism. So why shouldn't a human environment have an influence on what happens to a body? Can't a patient draw more strength from a doctor who is not overtired himself?

And so Jan Bonhoeffer encounters more and more gratitude when he talks to colleagues about such issues. «Many are initially hesitant and unsure whether they really want to talk about these issues. And when we do, I often end up hearing: »Oh, that would actually be wonderful if we could dare to work like that'".