The Human Touch

Back in the day, there was a time—between vinyl records and music streaming—when people would share playlists. It could be a friendly way to swap new music or a romantic gesture. Now, we have Spotify and Apple Music. These music delivery services can learn what we like and give us playlists of music that appeal to our taste. Music streaming services are objectively better than humans at making playlists targeted to individuals’ preferences.

But humans are not objective; we are social beings. Receiving a playlist generated from a computer does not come with the same emotional connection that we get when sharing music with a friend or loved one. Maybe someday the virtual reality experience will fully capture our emotions, but we are not there yet.

It may be that computers can create an objectively excellent, tailored treatment plan, but I doubt patients would be as satisfied with it as they are with a treatment plan delivered to them by a doctor who they feel is empathetic and caring. I have little doubt that medicine will become increasingly industrialized. However, as it does, empathy and caring will need to be industrialized, too, if maintaining human satisfaction is a prioritized goal.

In this issue, we discuss the difficulty that may be encountered visualizing erythema migrans in patients with skin of color, which can contribute to delayed diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, and the underappreciated symptom of fatigue in children with atopic dermatitis, among other topics. Understanding these conditions helps us off er treatments that will improve our patients’ lives. Those treatment plans may be better received, better used, and more effective if delivered in a way that makes patients feel cared for.