Patient-centredness: meaning and propriety in the Botswana, African and non-Western contexts

The term ‘patient-centredness’ was coined by Balint to emphasise that patients should be treated as unique individuals and was used initially to describe how physicians should interact and communicate with patients.6 From highlighting and emphasising the patient’s agenda and appropriate communication skills in doctor–patient interactions, PC grew to include optimal patient–healthcare system interactions. This established the meaning of PC which was distilled by McWhinney as ‘seeing the illness through the patient’s eyes’.7