In the February issue of Harvard Medicine, several articles explore issues of shared identity within the context of the doctor-patient relationship and health outcomes.
We have learned that patients with demographically similar physicians feel more comfortable and tend to report increased satisfaction with the health care they receive. In addition, recent studies looking at patient-physician concordance suggest that shared identity may contribute to better health outcomes.
Alex Keuroghlian, MD, Director of the Division of Education and Training at The Fenway Institute and an HMS Associate Professor of Psychiatry discusses the importance of increasing diversity in health care, especially in leadership positions, as one of the best ways to raise concordance for underserved populations.
Source: Shared Identity and the Doctor-Patient Relationship (Harvard Medicine)
Alex Keuroghlian, MD MPH is the Michele and Howard J Kessler Chair and Director of the MGH Division of Public and Community Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he is the Director of the MGH Gender Identity Program, Director of Education and Training Programs at the Fenway Institute, and Director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center.
