Public trust in doctors has fallen in recent years, yet patients keep trusting surgeons. Newsweek's June 2024 cover story set out to understand why, and it opens in Long Beach with Dr. Bhalla, one of the surgeons on Newsweek's America's Best Spine Surgeons list for 2024. He describes the operating room as a place of complete focus on the patient, and being trusted with that moment as a tremendous honor and a gift.
Dr. Bhalla speaks candidly about what makes trust harder today. Patients arrive with far more information from the web and social media, some of it accurate and some of it marketing or misinformation, which creates what he calls a huge information asymmetry between doctor and patient. Many patients also fear the unknown and the loss of control. He answers both the same way: by explaining clearly, and by reassuring patients that he, not the technology, is in charge of their surgery, even when robotics and navigation are used.
The article also records a point Dr. Bhalla makes often with his own patients: some of his happiest patients are people who had a complication and felt it was handled openly and well. Honesty when things do not go to plan builds more trust than a perfect run ever could. Small gestures matter too. He lets patients choose the music they hear as they drift off to sleep.
"Some of my happiest patients have had complications."
Newsweek's conclusion is that surgeons keep trust because they stay close to the patient and have a personal stake in the outcome. That is the standard this practice holds itself to. Read the full cover story on Newsweek's website.
