Claire Hutton PhD Candidate: Doctor-patients
Claire Hutton is currently a PhD candidate within the Department of General Practice at Monash University. Claire's research explores what it’s like for doctors, when their patient is also a doctor:
What do they like about treating colleagues, and what are the challenges?
Do they treat doctor-patients differently and, if so, in what ways and for what reasons?
And does this impact the care colleagues receive?
Claire's recent study involved 26 in-depth interviews GPs about their experiences of treating doctor-patients. While most thought this was an important role (and a few were positive about the experience), the majority spoke about apprehension about getting something wrong, and discomfort about feeling evaluated.
The professional socialisation of doctors has emphasised the importance of collegiality – shared training experiences, shared language, shared expectations. And respect for colleagues, mentioned in almost all interviews. But showing respect to a colleague who is now also their patient, could result in using medical language (with the risk that this may not be understood by the patient and, as one interviewee put it, “a doctor will never say they don’t understand!”). And respect can also impact history taking -- asking fewer questions in relation to sensitive areas like mental health and substance use.
In recent months, Claire has presented this study at both The Australian Association for Academic Primary Care conference in Sydney (September 2024), and the International Conference on Physician Health in Canada (October 2024). Claire is currently exploring ways in which the findings might incorporated into medical training.