Trust and Vulnerability: A Pediatrician's Perspective
Foundations
CONTRIBUTOR / Kelly Michelson
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR BIOETHICS AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES
FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE / Pediatrics
Trust can be defined many ways, but in the health-care setting, three characteristics of a trusting relationship stand out: vulnerability, motivation, and a focus on the future. A working definition for this kind of trust is the optimistic acceptance of a vulnerable situation in which the trustor believes the trustee will provide care that is in the trustor’s interest. In thinking about trust, it is helpful to consider distrust and its multiple meanings: a lack of familiarity, or a pessimism about another person’s intentions, or a desire to withhold judgment. It is also helpful to think about how trust operates in various contexts—for example, how people feel differently about their personal medical-care provider versus “the hospital” and “the health care system.”
Transcript
Trust is really about relationships. And it can be relationships between people; it can be relationships between a person and an organization; or it can even be between people and events.
People actually have different definitions for trust, and I think it’s important to think about, what do we mean by trust? Some would call it an “action based on expectations of how others will behave in relation to yourself in the future.”
Another definition of trust that applies well in the healthcare setting is the following: “the optimistic acceptance of a vulnerable situation in which the trustor believes the trustee will care [in the] trustor’s interest.”
There are some parts of that definition worth emphasizing — in particular, this notion of “vulnerability,” that there has to be some sense of vulnerability in a trusting relationship, whether it starts from that place or develops into a vulnerable place.
So, you can imagine having a relationship with someone, and once you’re very trusting of that person, that actually can make you more vulnerable.
More commonly in the healthcare setting, though, we see a patient who because of their illness, has some inherent vulnerability, and that helps to set up a situation where trust can build.
Another important piece of this definition is this concept of motivation — the idea that, in a trusting relationship, one person is doing something caring for another person or something in another person’s best interest.
And finally, embedded within this definition is the notion that trust is a forward-looking concept. While it may be influenced by past events, it really describes how a person or organization behaves moving forward.
BUMPER: Trust and Distrust
In talking about what trust means, we also have to consider what’s meant by “distrust.” And while the jury’s kind of out about a clear definition, I think there’s some important things to talk about.
Some people would talk about distrust as the absence of trust, the lack of familiarity, sort of not having a feeling one way or another.
Another way to look at distrust is that it’s the opposite of trust, that it’s a situation where a person is pessimistic or concerned about another person’s motivations.
And finally, one can think about distrust as a substitute for trust, not necessarily the opposite of trust. So, at some level, you can have distrust and trust at the same time.
For example, maybe I get sent to an emergency room, and I feel confident about the situation because I know it’s a good emergency room. But something happens, and I sort of feel like, “Well, I’m going to hold out and reserve judgment.”
So, you can kind of share a sense of trust and distrust simultaneously — this notion about trusting, but “let me make sure that’s really the case.”
BUMPER: Trust in Individuals and Systems
When we talk about trust in health care, I think it’s important to consider it in relationship to different groups: you can have individuals, and you can have systems.
Even in this individual group, you can identify differences. So, you can have a particular one individual — a doctor or a nurse. Or you can have kind of an institution that’s an individual institution within a larger group — so, maybe one hospital within a whole healthcare system.
And then you can also look at it from a more systems perspective. And even in that context, there are more individuals and then more institutional things.
For example, maybe the group or system of how emergency doctors function or how surgeons tend to function is maybe a more systems approach — or you have how a particular institution (how hospitals work) can also be a more systems-based perspective.
The other thing to keep in mind is that relationships can be personal and they can be impersonal in the healthcare system. So, again, I use the individual doctor with their patient as a very personal relationship.
And even a patient may have a personal relationship with a hospital. You can imagine having a feeling of trust for a particular hospital and, in that way, kind of personalizing that relationship.
You may have someone who doesn’t believe in western medicine. So, even this concept of western versus non-western — this system of western medicine versus non-western medicine — is important for some patients.