Building Trust in the Epilepsy Clinician-Patient Relationship: Elizabeth Felton, MD, PhD

WATCH TIME: 3 minutes

“I think one of the most important things is just the dissemination of the information to everyone. Keeping it top of mind for everyone is really important and will hopefully lead to improvement in epilepsy, health equity.”

Recently, there have been many conversations held in the clinical epilepsy community about the shared decision-making process between patients and the physicians for choosing the right treatment. The connection with the clinician and the patient is important for not only the patient to trust the provider but for them to also adhere to the medication being prescribed to them to reduce their seizures.

Elizabeth Felton, MD, an attendee from the 2022 American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting, held December 2 to 6, in Nashville, Tennessee, sat down with NeurologyLive^® in an interview and discussed the current progress in achieving health equity for patients with epilepsy. She shared her insight on how to improve the physician-patient relationship, particularly when the patient visits are shorter. Felton also spoke on the next step for providers to take in building a relationship of trust with their patients even if they do not relate from a racial, ethnic or socioeconomic standpoint. In addition, she talked about the progress made in the field in recent years. Felton, assistant professor, Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin, mentioned the reason why providers in the physician community need to be thinking about health equity. She talked about downstream effects those conversations can have not only on the ability to get patients to compile, but to improve their outcomes and quality of life.

Click here for more coverage of AES 2022.