Church architecture describes visually the idea of the sacred, which is a fundamental need of man.
– Mario Botta, Swiss architect
My parents are visiting the Holy See today – prima volta in Italia! My mom waited years for this. She isn’t meeting the Pope or attending Mass. Yet, in the Whatsapp pics they sent me, you can see tears well up as she experiences St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s a visceral response to what is just a building and a poignant example of the significance of spaces.
More than just appreciating an edifice’s grandeur or exquisiteness, we are wired to connect with spaces emotionally. Beautiful or significant buildings move us, they make us feel something. Churches, synagogues, or mosques are good examples. They combine spiritual and aesthetic allure. But so too do gorgeous hotels, Apple stores, and posh restaurants. We crave the richness of an environment experienced through our five senses. The glory of sunlight through stained glass, the smell of luxurious scent pumped into a lobby, the weight of a silky new iPhone in your hand. We also have a sixth sense, that feeling we get from knowing that we are standing in a sacred place. A physical space that connects us with something wider and deeper than ourselves.
Dr. Jeffrey Benabio
Virtual may be the peak of convenience, but in-real-life is the pinnacle of experience. Patients will be inconvenienced and pay higher costs to experience their appointment in person. This should not be surprising. Contemplate this: Every year, millions of people will travel across the globe to stand before a wall or walk seven times around a stone building. And millions everyday will perambulate around an Apple Store, willingly paying a higher price for the same product they can buy for less elsewhere. The willingness to pay for certain experiences is remarkably high.
Dr. Jeffrey Benabio
Every day when I cover patient messages, I offer some patients an immediate, free solution to their problem. Just today I exchanged emails with a patient thinking I had addressed her concern by reassuring her that it was a benign seborrheic keratosis. Done. She then replied, “Thanks so much, Dr. Benabio! I still would like to schedule an appointment to come in person.” So much for the efficiency of digital medicine.
Before dismissing these patients as Luddites, understand what they want is the doctor’s office experience. The sights, the smells, the sacredness of what happens here. It is no coincidence that the first clinics were temples. In ancient Greece and Rome, the sick and the gashed made pilgrimages to one of at least 300 Asclepieia, temples of healing. During the medieval period, monasteries doubled as housing for the sick until the church began constructing stand-alone hospitals, often in cross-shaped design with an altar in the middle (eventually that became the nurses station, but without the wine).
Patients entrust us with their lives and their loved ones’ lives and a visit takes on far more significance than a simple service transaction. Forty years on, I can recall visits to Dr. Bellin’s office. He saw pediatric patients out of his Victorian home office with broad, creaky hardwood floors, stained glass, and cast iron radiators. The scent of isopropyl soaked cotton balls and typewriter ink is unforgettable. Far from sterile, it was warm, safe. It was a sacred place, one for which we still sometimes drive by when doing the tour of where I grew up.
We shall forge ahead and continue to offer virtual channels to serve our patients just as any service industry. But don’t force them there. At the same time Starbucks has been building its digital app, it is also building Starbucks Reserve Roasteries. Immense cathedral edifices with warm woods and luxurious brass, the smell of roasting coffee and warm leather perfuming the air. It is where patrons will travel long distances and endure long waits to pay a lot more for a cup of coffee.
Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.