Why physicians are the last anchors of trust in public health

Geeta Nayyar: ©Geeta Nayyar

Last week, a patient arrived in my office frantically scrolling through her phone.

“I’ve done my research,” she said, pointing at screenshots about her medical condition she’d taken from social media. “Which of these is true?”

As a rheumatologist with more than 20 years of experience in health care and health tech, I’ve noticed an alarming increase in these sorts of interactions with my patients. For many physicians, they’ve become daily occurrences. The conversations we have with our patients are no longer just about symptoms and treatment; they’re also about sorting fact from fiction.

As trust in the CDC falters and headlines fuel confusion, patients are looking to their doctors and local hospitals for reassurance. In an era when public health guidance seems to shift by the week, physicians and provider organizations need to become anchors—trusted messengers who can be relied on to provide clarity—to help patients stay afloat in increasingly turbulent waters.

Being an anchor isn’t easy. A 2023 survey from the Physicians Foundation found that 61% of doctors say their patients had been influenced by misinformation or disinformation at least a moderate amount in the past year, and 86% believe the problem has grown worse in the last five years. By the time patients walk into an exam room, they’ve often encountered dozens of conflicting claims about their condition.

Hospitals feel the weight of this burden too. As community institutions, they’re expected to be trusted voices when our national institutions falter. Whether it’s running vaccine clinics, communicating updated guidance, or calming public fears during a crisis, provider organizations are expected to translate national policy into local action.

Even as trust in national health institutions declines, local providers remain trusted and reliable in the public eye. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll taken in January found that while trust in the CDC had fallen to 61% and the FDA to 53%, 85% of Americans still trusted their personal physicians to make the right health recommendations for them. Similarly, according to a 2022 American Academy of Arts & Sciences report, 82% of adults rate the quality of care they receive from their doctor or hospital as excellent or good.

This contrast tells us something important: trust is best established locally. It is in the exam room where credibility is built—or eroded. Local hospitals and health care clinics are not just places of care; they are pillars of community trust and vital anchors in turbulent times.

Silence is costly. When health professionals don’t speak up—out of frustration or fear of saying the wrong thing—we do our patients a great disservice, making them more susceptible to listening to voices that may not have their best interests at heart. Silence creates space for misinformation to spread unchecked. Speaking up helps reclaim that space.

Becoming anchors for patients can also help physicians. For us, misinformation is one of the main drivers of stress, as it significantly impacts our ability to provide quality care. Embracing the role of communicator instead of shying away from it can help us reclaim a sense of purpose and agency and decrease our high burnout rate.

The storms of misinformation, institutional upheaval, and public confusion we’re currently facing aren’t going away anytime soon. Hospitals and health care systems must invest in supporting doctors as communicators, equipping them with the time, tools, and resources to counter misinformation effectively. Because trust cannot be outsourced, we must meet our patients where they are, one conversation at a time.
 
Patients will always gravitate toward institutions they can trust. Physicians and provider organizations can be those anchors, as long as they remain transparent, compassionate, and committed. Our steadiness and reliability today will determine how well our patients will be able to weather the storms of tomorrow.

Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA, is a globally recognized chief medical officer, technologist, and bestselling author who helps leaders leverage a human approach to innovation, including rapid advances in AI, to achieve better health and business outcomes.A widely sought-after speaker and author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller “Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare’s Misinformation Illness,” Dr. G has appeared on CNBC, CNN, FOX, and other prominent media outlets. She has served as chief medical officer for Salesforce and AT&T, among other executive roles. She currently serves on the board of the American Telemedicine Association and as an advisor to the American Medical Association.