John Freedy’s poem “Shared Truth” represents a reflection on the unique context, content, quality, and spirit of the physician–patient relationship. In an era when discussions of business models for health care delivery are rife and health care providers are exhorted to provide timely, safe, effective, efficient, and equitable patient care, the human side of medicine—the need, which the poem intimates, for, at times, solace—has become lost in the busy(i)ness of medicine. We are not arguing that effective, safe, and financially sound care delivery is unimportant; rather, the poem reminds us why we chose medicine for our profession and why we teach medical students about communication, interviewing skills, and the attendant physician–patient relationship. “I listened carefully for words” reminds us of the imperative to listen to our patients, but as the poem continues, it delves beyond active listening and reflecting back to patients their already-voiced concerns. It points to the fact that the physician–patient relationship is indeed a relationship, with two individuals influencing each other in simultaneously obvious and subtle ways. “By custom, I offer advice. Doctor’s orders.” The physician gives to the patient. “My patients do not recognize that they are my teachers, mentors, guides.” The patient gives to the physician. Is this skill, knowing our patients through ourselves, not the essence of what we think of as humanism in medicine—the connection of two individuals who “share a truth” about life and its joys, trials, laughter, and tears? How do we teachers convey this lesson about human connection in a classroom full of bright medical students eager to make sure that they accurately complete their checklist of interview questions, that they have been thorough in their approach to taking the patient’s history? Their need for accuracy and thoroughness is driven by other needs—to pass exams and eventually gain licensure—but is accuracy and thoroughness all a patient requires? In our 15 years of teaching communication and interviewing skills to students, we have aimed to stretch their skills beyond asking the right questions and making statements that indicate empathy, to ponder and reflect upon the dynamics in their relationship with a particular patient. What feelings did the interview with the standardized patient engender—were you, the student interviewer, suddenly anxious, sad, angry? If so, might this feeling arise from something the patient is consciously or unconsciously conveying? Masked sadness might be about a work-related accident that has resulted in chronic pain, limited quality of life, and made the patient miss “the man I used to be.” Acknowledging the sadness—felt by the interviewer, though veiled by the patient—can prompt a deeper connection with the patient and convey real empathy, and in turn, lead to enhanced trust within the relationship and a shared truth. Listening carefully for—and beyond—words might prompt other feelings within the student, particularly those around familial roles. Is the patient reacting as if the medical student were the spouse? If the student feels that the patient has unconsciously cast her as his wife, she receives a clue as to what the patient is experiencing within the marriage. The point is not for the student to become marital counselor, but to use the insight to better understand the patient’s perspective. “I imagine you may be irritated with your spouse right now” is a reflective and empathic statement, but it also probes the patient’s thinking, allowing the student to further explore the underlying motivations and emotions within the individual. First-year medical students learning the mechanics of interviewing are quite capable of reflecting on feelings they imagine in patients and feel in themselves. As teachers, our duty is to have students explicitly pay attention to these feelings as clues to patient’s deeper needs. Within the context of learning their professional role as physician—the “personal physician, secular priest”—acknowledging the patient’s emotional state and, when relevant, one’s own feelings (transference and countertransference), allows the physician to maintain the professional role while still assisting the patient effectively. One student recently told us, “I’ve realized I can easily slip into the role of the dutiful child with older patients, and [through our class discussions] can now derive meaning from it and return to my professional role.” “Shared Truth” reminds us of the inherent give-and-take and the embedded humanism within the physician–patient relationship. It is the human connection that fosters patient-centered care, and as educators, it is our imperative both to ensure that students learn the value of such connection and to provide ways for them to achieve it. Our teaching of medical students encourages reflection and perspective taking; it fosters discussion of emotions and the sharing of observations from within the clinical milieu. Patient-centered medicine does not focus on the localized disease of the individual, but the whole person as a complex being with a unique social history, emotional terrain, and response to environmental and biological influences. The whole person—not simply the patient—seeks the healer for treatment of the localized disease. Safe, effective, efficient, timely, and equitable health care cannot be truly achieved if patients do not feel a human connection with those healers. Clive D. Brock, MB, ChB, and Amy V. Blue, PhD Dr. Brock is professor emeritus of family medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, and he is former president, American Balint Society; e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Blue was professor of family medicine, assistant provost for education, and director, Creating Collaborative Care Initiative, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, when this was written. She is currently professor of behavioral science and community health and associate dean for educational affairs, College of Public Health and Health Professions, and associate vice president for interprofessional education, UFHealth at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; e-mail: [email protected]