News Photo by Michael Gonzalez Tara Sherrick prepares for an oncology appointment at MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena on Tuesday.

ALPENA — Studies show and professionals from MyMichigan Health say trust between doctors and patients is at a healthy level.

Thomas Thornton, vice president of medical affairs at MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena, said he hasn’t seen or heard of any distrust between medical staff and patients in Northeast Michigan after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You saw a lot of support during the pandemic — of people supporting the nurses and the doctors and things like that,” Thornton said. “My experience and the people that I’ve talked to, patients really were quite grateful that (we) were sort of in the trenches working through this pandemic.”

The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago held a survey from December 2020 to January 2021 which found 78% of U.S. patients are more trusting towards their primary physicians and are less trusting towards higher divisions of the healthcare system.

Thornton agreed with the survey and research that followed the pandemic, saying patients were overall very frustrated with the structured system of the medical field.

He said the pandemic was isolating for everyone. Appointments were held virtually and many people, staff and patients alike, had very strong principles that clashed.

“(Patients) had a set of beliefs because … of a preconceived notion, and that was a barrier to a lot of care,” Thornton said. “Whatever reason somebody has a set of beliefs related to a medical (practice), you can explain why you think it’s important, but ultimately they’re gonna do the choices best for them. And you have to just accept that and be their provider.”

Thornton said the relationship between a patient and physician is meant to be a “two-way street.” He said the physician’s job is to educate patients to make the best decisions, but it’s still the patient’s decision to trust and listen to their provider.

One way to deal with any potential distrust is to have a longstanding primary physician, according to Thornton and MyMichigan Health Center Alpena President Mike Erickson.

“These relationships between a physician and their patient should already be established and embedded in trust,” Erickson said. “When you’ve known a provider for so long it takes a longer time to put a wedge in the trust.”

Thornton estimates that around 40 to 50% of patients that come into MyMichigan’s urgent care do not have a primary care provider on record. He explained that these patients are essentially using these emergency rooms as their primary provider, which can cause hiccups in efficient health care.

“If patients don’t have somebody that they know, that they can go to and then they have a relationship with before they get sick, that makes it really difficult here,” Thornton said.