Restoring Trust between Patient and Doctor

A physician who left medicine to work full-time in television\naddresses what he sees as the worsening relationship between doctors and\npatients in the United States. In open letters to medical consumers and to\ndoctors, Johnson identifies the issues of trust and payment of doctors as the\nsources of the problem. His letter to medical consumers describes the\nstressful conditions under which physicians practice today that are\ndiscouraging qualified people from entering medicine, and are encouraging\nexperienced physicians to leave the field. Johnson's letter to doctors\ndiscusses the sources of public anger toward their profession and he urges his\ncolleagues to avoid all financial conflicts of interest and to encourage\npractice arrangements based on salaries rather than on fees. (KIE\nabstract)