Hey Doc … Shut Up!
By Kate McHugh, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
December 17, 2007
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Two women exchange stories about a recent vacation, a child’s college plans and their favorite new restaurant. Two old friends having coffee together? Nope! A new study finds this is what many doctor’s visits are starting to sound like.
While recent studies have shown good doctor-patient communication is beneficial for the patient’s overall health, a new study reveals many doctors may not be having conversations that are beneficial to patients, specifically personal information about themselves.
“In some situations, the physician would sort of lose track of where they were and they would start to act like they were in a social setting, telling stories to each other,” Howard Beckman, M.D., a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and co-author of the study, told Ivanhoe.
Researchers found doctors talked about themselves in 34 percent of new patient visits. Of all personal discussions, 85 percent were not considered useful to the patient and only 21 percent of those doctors even returned to the patient topic that preceded their self-disclosures. Eleven percent of physician disclosures were considered to be actually disruptive, while only 4 percent were deemed useful to patients.
“What it pointed out to us was that doctors are in need of the same human communication everyone is and they probably don’t get it enough. The average internist sees 22 people a day, so the question is how much listening to other people’s problems can you do before you want to talk about your own?” Dr. Beckman said.
He pointed out in most patient visits, there is a limited amount of time, so too much digression can interfere with patient needs. Dr. Beckman recommends patients speak up to make sure their needs are met -- and they are getting their money’s worth!
“If they find a doctor is starting to divert into a story, it would be good to think of some respectful, polite way to interrupt and move back to the issues that are important to them,” Dr. Beckman said. “Saying something like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I’m interested in this other thing. I wonder if we could return to this problem that’s been bothering me.’ Most doctors are particularly unaware that they are disclosing like this, so I think they would be fine about returning to the topic at hand.”
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Howard Beckman, M.D.; Archives of Internal Medicine, 2007;167:1321-1326
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