Thoughts on "Pocahontas Goes to the Clinic"

I thought Mattingly brought up a really good point about needing to find common ground between patients and doctors and how Disney or any other similar characters really help bridge that gap. This finding common ground so you can build rapport is vital in the successful treatment of anyone who is sick, but especially true in children. As someone who has spent a lot of time in waiting rooms and interacted with many doctors I can really understand Mattingly when she reported how the people she interviewed didn't always trust their doctor and wondered if their doctor even cared if their child got better or not.

Any time there are differences between people, and let's face it when are there not any, some extra effort needs to be put in to help bridge that gap. Race and economic differences are huge hurdles in today's world. One doesn't have to look far in trying to figure out why there is distrust between doctors and patients in urban clinics. Doctors are vital to the well being of members of society so it comes to no surprise that they are usually paid very well for their services. Because of their income, due to specialized training, doctors are set apart from everyone else and this puts distance between the doctors and those they are trying to help. This separation adds to the gap already between people of different ethnic and economic backgrounds. While the gap is always present it plays a more important role when the two groups need to work together to accomplish a shared goal, in this case improving the health of the patient.
Any doctor who takes the extra time and tries to find something that their patient can relate to really does a lot to improve their working relationship. This is true for everyone and not just related to the children in this article. Taking the time to find that common ground shows that you care and want to help that person. This goes a long way in proving to the patient’s parent, or anyone for that matter, that you as their doctor care about what happens to the child and helps to show that everyone is on the same side.
In my experiences I found it difficult to connect with my doctors. (In my experiences with doctors I was usually, not always, of the same ethnic background as them. I was usually in a lower social class, but there was not as big a difference between my doctors and me as the people in Mattingly's studies.) Age had a lot to do with it (being I was a freshman in high school when I first started experiencing my chronic migraines). So I can really understand how difficult it must be for a doctor to establish a relationship of trust with a let's say five year old who the doctor has never met before. Grasping on to something like that child's favorite movie goes a long way to help make that child more comfortable. We've all felt that awkward silence when you meet someone for the first time and have no idea what to say since you have no idea what they are interested in. "So how about them Yankee's?" This only becomes more awkward when you come from completely different backgrounds and have what seems to be nothing in common. It's unsurprising that the weather finds its way into as many conversations as it does.
Until all members of the world are cast from the same mold I think we, as a society, need to focus more on the similarities than the differences between us. Until then, all the extra effort we put in to help bridge the gap by discovering everything that we have in common goes a long way to help prove that we are trying and more importantly that we care.