Addressing Social Drivers of Health: What is the role of the clinician?

On Becoming a Healer

In can be confusing and even demoralizing for a medical student or resident to understand what’s expected of them when caring for patients with social needs. They already feel overwhelmed. Are they supposed to now also screen for housing insecurity? Is it their job to intervene to address social needs? And if someone else is doing the screening, what’s their role? And are they also supposed to be advocating for changes to social policies? Finally, what’s special about social needs as opposed to all the other reasons that, for instance, a patient can’t control their diabetes? A patient may not be able to store their insulin because they are poor. Or they may not be able to administer it because they can’t read the bottle or their fingers are arthritic.

Our guest, Emily Murphy MD, an academic hospitalist, provides her perspective on teaching medical students and residents about SDOH. Co-host Saul Weiner, expresses concern that messages to trainees about their roles are confusing, that the SDOH movement is just the latest buzzword in medicine, like “patient-centered care,”, and that while getting a huge amount of attention the movement could ultimately have little impact on patient wellbeing. He, Dr. Murphy, and co-host Stefan Kertesz discuss these questions and concerns and consider what needs to change.