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All physicians, particularly those in primary care, are under constant pressure from administrators to “be more productive” despite caring for more significant numbers of patients with increasingly challenging health concerns. While expanded patient encounters benefit the bottom-line that administrators are constantly watching, they also force physicians to spend less time with each patient. The result can lead to frustration and anxiety on both sides, with physicians sensing they may have missed something during their evaluation and patients feeling their concerns were not acknowledged.
The Healing Connection addresses this current situation in American healthcare. It discusses how a strong patient-physician relationship can help overcome the obstacles imposed on it by entities seeking to commoditize healthcare delivery in our country. Dr. Drew Remignanti firmly believes this solid and trustworthy doctor-patient relationship is the key to superior and more cost-effective outcomes.
Early Praise:
Dr. Remignanti has made a valuable contribution to the discourse regarding how to improve the delivery of healthcare in general, but with particular relevance to how it is done in America. His 40-year career as an emergency medicine physician, the entire time of which he was also a patient suffering from a debilitating chronic disease, enables him to share critically important insights gleaned from both ends of the stethoscope — insights that are supported by extensive research and conveyed with considerable humor. Healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers, indeed, society in general, will be better off for having read this book.
—David Rutstein, MD, MPH
About the Author
Drew Remignanti grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1975. After receiving an M.D. from Rutgers Medical School in 1980, he went on to complete an emergency medicine residency program. Dr. Remignanti retired in 2020 after a 40-year career in a number of New England hospitals. Dr. Remignanti has also lived with chronic illness since being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age 19. In 1992, he suffered a major stroke which sidetracked his career for five years. During this period, he earned an MPH from the Medical College of Wisconsin and participated in several international public health projects. In 1997, Dr. Remignanti returned to full-time emergency medicine practice. This journey inspired him to write The Healing Connection, which explores how dollar-driven decisions wield too much influence over our medical decisions as patients and, sadly, as physicians as well.
David Rutstein, MD, MPH –
Dr. Remignanti has made a valuable contribution to the discourse regarding how to improve the delivery of healthcare in general, but with particular relevance to how it is done in America. His 40-year career as an emergency medicine physician, the entire time of which he was also a patient suffering from a debilitating chronic disease, enables him to share critically important insights gleaned from both ends of the stethoscope—insights that are supported by extensive research and conveyed with considerable humor. Healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers, indeed, society in general, will be better off for having read this book.
Stephen A. Buglione, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist North Salem, New York –
Who better than a career emergency department physician to report on the quality of healthcare offered by systems run by non-physician business interests, as is the current trend in the United States? As if common sense and 40 years of clinical experience were not enough, Dr. Remignanti marshals abundant research evidence pointing to the unnecessary physical, emotional, and financial costs to patients and providers alike when the doctor-patient relationship is forced to take a back seat to quotas and other profit-driven economies of scales. A true tour de force, The Healing Connection solidly documents the value of a stable long-term relationship with one’s doctor—which allows for the development of trust, openness, collaboration, and (not coincidentally) enhanced emotional well-being, leading to superior and more cost-effective health outcomes.
Don Middleton, MD –
In his book, The Healing Connection, Dr. Remignanti takes a fresh, very personal, and compelling look at the nature of the modern patient-physician relationship. He has experienced both sides of this relationship in very profound ways. He has had a long career as an emergency physician who has dealt with countless very stressful and life-saving challenges in his everyday work. I consider myself very privileged to have trained with him and worked alongside him early in our careers. Dr. Remignanti has also been a patient who has confronted and struggled with multiple very serious life-altering medical problems. Through these two lenses, he has examined and presented a detailed and thoroughly researched analysis of the current state of medicine as it pertains to the patient-physician relationship. Moreover, while weaving in fascinating stories about facing and overcoming adversity as an emergency physician and as a patient, he provides guidance on how to rebalance and regain trust in this relationship in order to optimize medical outcomes for all involved. The reader is taken on a very thoughtful journey and is left with real hope for the future of medicine.
John V. Romano, MD, MPH –
Dr. Remignanti passionately explores the great importance of the physician-patient relationship and the power and spirituality that it embodies. It is the most significant therapeutic aspect of the practice of medicine.
In his well-researched presentation, he gives evidence for the healing power of the physician-patient relationship, a relationship which is being threatened by the misguided direction US healthcare is being taken by corporate America.
He presents his case, reviewing scientific research, and relating riveting personal experiences from both the physician and patient side of the bed. In doing this, Dr. Remignanti also gives the non-medical person an honest glimpse of the challenges, struggles, and joys of being a caring physician. He has the courage to lead us to the inevitable conclusion that the patient-physician relationship is a “near sacred encounter,” a beautiful, spiritual act, that is our best hope not only for our own personal optimal health outcomes but also for changing the destructive course the US healthcare system is currently on.
Karen M. Wyatt, MD Hospice Physician, Podcast Host, Spiritual Teacher, Speaker, Author of Award-Winning Book 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying –
Drew Remignanti, in his book The Healing Connection, skillfully weaves compelling stories from his medical career and his own experiences as a patient suffering from chronic disease with extensive research into all aspects of the physician-patient relationship. The result is a meticulous dissection of modern medicine that lays bare the flaws and failures of our current healthcare system and makes the case for a renewed emphasis on primary care and the connection between doctors and their patients. This book is a clarion call and a guide for reform at all levels of healthcare delivery to prioritize and protect the sacredness of these healing relationships and should be widely read by medical providers and patients alike.
Jeffrey Salloway, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus at University of New Hampshire. –
Leonardo, like great artists, drew lines. He drew lines to illustrate. When he filled the lines with color, he illuminated. Like the artist, Remignanti draws the lines to illustrate. He takes our eye to the data, the science. He offers the facts. He illustrates. Then he adds the rich colors of his experience as a physician, the stories of hurt and healing. There he illuminates. He crosses the lines of illustration, draws our minds into a new vision and then blends his own deep spiritual insight to create his masterwork. Remignanti makes the conversation personal. Rather than critiquing a health care system in distress, he guides the reader to place himself in the portrait. He tells us where we fit in the picture and how we may behave to make art of our own lives. This is a book that changes the way one lives.
Rev. Dr. Michael Caldwell is a retired pastor in the United Church of Christ and a member of the international, ecumenical Iona Community –
Yes, you and your health insurance company invest financially in your primary care physician for his or her care. But your most enduring insurance is your care for yourself, your investment in yourself and your health, including mental wellness, emotional quotient (EQ), and spiritual attitude. Dr. Remignanti points to the urgency of attention to all these factors that undergird your physical well-being. More than that, he emphasizes the incalculable value of a long-term relationship with your primary care physician. He asks for patience from his patients in learning what might be called ‘the art of partnership wellness.’ Then you may never have to walk through the door of the emergency department which he knew so well. Some of his stories are quite dramatic, but they may prompt new mindfulness for health as a lifestyle choice itself. My long-term primary care physician had retired about a year before I read Dr. Remignanti’s book. Reading it got me immediately on the phone to make an appointment with a new PCP for my annual checkup!
—Rev. Dr. Michael Caldwell is a retired pastor in the United Church of Christ and a member of the international, ecumenical Iona Community
An Early Reader –
The weaving of the author’s personal and professional life, along with his assessment of issues in the healthcare system, was masterfully handled. With a dry sense of humor which will at times bring you to laughter and at other times to horrified disbelief, Dr. Remignanti tells stories based on his experiences as both a doctor and a patient, and relays events from his extensive research which are a mind-boggling and eye-opening history of medicine.
Richard Kauff MD –
I loved this book! Stick with it as it builds gradually with more patient care histories, more humor, and more indignation on what has happened to our health care system. Dr Remignanti makes a compelling case for the importance of consistent doctor-patient relationships. His personality shines through as he describes all he has gone through personally and professionally. He presents a compelling prescription for how and why we should fix our broken system. As a primary care pediatrician I felt both vindicated as to my importance and disappointed that we doctors have allowed the destructive corporate takeover of medicine. This book is funny, insightful, and well written, You will be glad you read it.
John Tank –
In this compelling and thought provoking
book, Dr Remignanti provides numerous detailed accounts of his many physician patient interactions, both as a physician and as a patient himself, as evidence for his emphasis on the extreme importance of a thorough two-way physician patient relationship to improve outcomes. He also references the findings of numerous clinical studies and many other sources which support this position.
He shows that, unfortunately, this type of relationship is now squarely at odds with the current, not-so-gradual migration to health care as a business, which drives for increases in volume, efficiency and profitability. The increasing constraints on physician patient contact imposed by these changes in the healthcare system have resulted in a decrease in both meaningful physician patient interactions and positive outcomes.
This is an important and timely book for patients and healthcare providers alike as America’s healthcare system now stands at a crucial crossroad.
Betty Anne Henderson –
For me , this book was an amazing read because I started working in healthcare in 1984 and retired in 2020, much the same time as the author. The research and “from the heart” writings are compelling. Though I am not a doctor, the last 20 years of my career were in the ER and the author truly captured the realism, both the positive and negative.
I would highly recommend this to all. You don’t have to be in the medical field to read this book. We all have to deal with health-care and should be aware of the pros and cons. This book is a wealth of researched information.
Dennis Duquette –
Having worked for over 35 years in the hospital setting as a registered nurse, I wish to wholeheartedly endorse Dr. Remignanti’s lucid argument that we are diminishing the quality of healthcare in the United States by weakening the patient/doctor relationship. In the spirit of creating efficiencies and maximizing profits, U.S. health insurance companies are turning healthcare into an impersonal, factory model which Dr. Remignanti convincingly argues is not only decreasing the quality of healthcare, but it is also failing to decrease the costs of healthcare. It has been successful, however, at increasing profits by pushing an impersonal model for healthcare delivery. Think ‘Doc in a Box”.
Dr. Remignanti’s writing style is extremely readable. He makes you feel that you are having a one on one conversation with him as he shares his personal experiences as a physician, as well as his experiences as a patient with a serious and chronic autoimmune disease. His arguments are well supported with medical journal references, however, the layperson is not at all burdened by this. Read and enjoy the behind the scenes thoughts and impressions of a conscientious, dedicated and perceptive emergency department physician.
Dennis Duquette, RN (retired)