What does it mean to look into the face of a patient who looks back? Face-to-face encounters are at the heart of the patient-clinician relationship but their singular significance is often lost amid the demands of today's high-tech, metric-driven health care systems. Using the framework provided by the philosopher and Holocaust survivor Emmanuel Levinas, the authors explore the unique responsibility and potential for hope found only in face-to-face encounters. Revisiting this most fundamental attribute of medicine is likely our greatest chance to reclaim who we are as clinicians and why we do what we do.
Keywords: clinician-patient communication/relationship; hope; psychosocial issues in health care.
© 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.