With the phrase “relationship building in medicine,” the latest juicy Grey’s Anatomy relationship drama might come to mind — however, relationship building has many practical uses in the field of medicine, Anusha Naik says.
Naik, a fourth-year medical student at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, worked as an engagement preparations intern at the Morgridge Center for Public Service from 2019 to 2020 before graduating in 2020. The lessons she learned about community engagement at the Morgridge Center have continued to apply as she pursues a career in Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Surgery, Naik says.
Growing up, Naik’s love for science first brought her to consider medicine as a career, but as she has continued in her career, she has grown an appreciation for how human connection can create better patient care.
“The real beauty of medicine is the ability to work with people from so many walks of life, whether those are your co-workers or your patients,” Naik says. “It is intrinsically structured to work with people and really leverage what everyone brings to the table to accomplish a certain goal, which often is improvement of a patient’s health.”
Beyond communication within a professional healthcare team, connection between a patient and their provider can create trust between the two. This understanding between a patient and their provider can change the patient’s experience, comfort level and openness with their provider, which can influence the treatment path a healthcare team chooses to take, Naik says.
Through her position at the Morgridge Center as an engagement preparations intern, Naik learned important lessons about mutually beneficial community partnerships, she says — lessons about involving stakeholders to help design a project, gathering and addressing feedback about the project and creating a self-sustaining project.
These ideas have transferred into community initiatives Naik has since worked on in medical school, she says. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Naik was involved with a vaccine education and rollout program for Philadelphia residents traditionally underserved by the healthcare system. She’s also worked with a surgical community clinic that connects uninsured patients with insurance and helps patients navigate the coverage of surgical procedures.
“That same spirit of community service has transferred forward into medical school for me, and I’ve applied the ideas that I learned at the Morgridge Center to do it,” Naik says.
These programs are examples of public service addressing inequities in healthcare. When inequities exist in healthcare access and even access to the training pathway to become a healthcare provider, public service can be a chance to address and mitigate these issues, Naik says.
Medical school and training can be arduous, Naik says, but the opportunity for human connection and mutual understanding in medicine pushes her to keep learning and keep moving through her career.
She possesses a certain gratitude for patients that, despite their vulnerability in sickness, allow her to be involved with their care, learn from their treatment plan and use these lessons to inform care of future patients.
Some of Naik’s most memorable patient care experiences have been when she has witnessed a connection being built between patient and provider. In these experiences, both the patient and the provider develop trust in each other by recognizing the skills and experiences that each other brings to the table. From building trust between patient and provider to collaborating with healthcare team members, mutual understanding is essential to patient care, Naik says.
“When that mutual understanding is there, it sets a really good foundation for the delivery of healthcare and improvement of patient health,” Naik says.