Patient Centered Medicine and Soundscape—A bridge between clinicians and acousticians

The Patient Centered Method (PCM) and Soundscape have much in common including their emergence about 60 years ago based on the work of Balint and Kryter, respectively. Both place the patient or person at the center of management of clinical illness or noise annoyance. PCM requires that the patient perceive that they have experienced meaningful care, communication, and common ground in clinical encounters. The evaluation focuses on the patient’s life context and their perception of disease or the “illness experience.” When PCM is accomplished, the result is higher satisfaction, better outcomes of chronic diseases, fewer tests, and referrals and attendant lower costs (Stewart et al., 2000). Soundscape, a term coined by Shafer in 1977 also places the person in center, in the context of their acoustic environment, emphasizes their perception of noise as the “New Experts” (Bray 2012). According to Bray exposed people are “objective measuring instruments whose reports and experiences must be taken seriously and...