SOCIAL COMPETENCE OF PHYSICIAN AS A FACTOR OF PRODUCTIVE INTERACTION WITH PATIENTS

Abstract

The author analyses notion of social competence of a physician within the frame of his professional competence, predisposing for the productive interaction with patients. The author states that the notion of social competence of physicians hasn’t been sufficiently studied and described by the Ukrainian authors, though foreign authors have significantly contributed to this study. The analysis of literature data hasn’t provided a certain definition of the notion “social competence of physician”, which predominantly authors regard as a professional competence component, though some authors describe physician’s social-communicative competence. The article defines social competence of physician as his ability to interact productively in the society, within the patterns “Physician – Patient”, “Physician – Patient’s supporting side”, “Physician – Healthcare system”. The author emphasizes that social competence of physician is an indispensable component of his productive interaction with patient. The article defines the following functions of the physician’s social competence: cognition, action, adaptation and orientation, management and action, integration and role function. The author, basing on the literature analysis, defines the main models of the social competence of physicians: workplace, behavioral, business strategy, cognitive-emotional and holistic approach. The state medical institutions are presumable characterized by the workplace model of physician’s social competence, while the private establishments promote business strategy and cognitive emotional one. The author supposes that the optimum model should include all possible components within the social competence structure, not just some of them. The author dwells on the necessity of the subsequent definition of the physician’s social competence structural model and definition of such model for physicians of different specializations, the structures to be compared.