(Have you been able to improve your "bedside" experience with your doctor? We're asking you to share your ideas for doing so. Find the link to share your ideas at the end of this article.)
An article in the New York Times asked, "Can Bedside Manner Be Taught?" The question was posed as an acknowledgement that bedside manner, that compassionate and benevolent side of a doctor's personality, seems too often to be missing in the doctor-patient relationship.
If you're middle-age or older, then you remember when most doctors were friendly, sympathetic, and took their time with their patients. Sometimes we invoke Dr. Marcus Welby, a TV doctor from the 1960s, to personify who that doctor was.
In more recent years, that compassion and benevolence seems to have been replaced by fast and brusque. There are reasons this has happened. Those reasons relate to the cost of care, and the ways doctors are paid. Insurance and government payers tell a doctor how much time she may spend with a patient. And if she spends too much time, then she will lose money. If she does that too often, then she can't stay in practice.
Many doctors have learned short cuts to ensure they spend as little time with a patient as necessary. That has resulted in frustration among patients and doctors. It has also resulted in more medical errors.
You may have had this experience - too little time, and a doctor who will not engage in a friendly conversation. Not only can it be disconcerting, but it can detrimental impact on the quality of your care.
Here are suggestions to help you foster a relationship with a doctor, in hopes of improving his bedside manner:
Your Doctor's Point of View
You'll better understand why your doctor lacks bedside manner if you understand his point of view. Remember, he has insurance constraints, a waiting room full of patients, the rent and power bills are due on his office space, and he promised his daughter he would be there for her soccer game after school, and just had an argument with his wife (or variations thereof!). The point is that doctors are people, too, who have similar frustrations to yours and mine.
Some doctors, in particular specialists, learn to distance themselves on purpose. Imagine going to work every day knowing someone you have treated, perhaps for a long time, will die despite your best efforts. Or watching patients get sicker because they don't follow treatment instructions. Or any number of frustrations beyond your control. Distance creates a buffer that protects them from emotional stress.
Of course, some doctors really don't care, never did and never will. Hopefully you won't ever be in a position where difficult decisions will need to be made with one of these doctors. At best, they are simply quiet and uncommunicative. At worst, they are condescending and arrogant.
Steps You Can Take to Improve Your Doctor's Bedside Manner
When you and your doctor have a solid rapport, then it can have a positive impact on your quality of care. Knowing that communication is important, here are some steps you can take to encourage a better bedside manner from your doctor:
- When you have an appointment, be prepared. Bring a list of questions, and keep them concise. Limit them to the top three or four. If you have more than that, then plan to make a second appointment to cover them. This is the best way to show your doctor that you understand his time constraints and that you are respecting the time you have been allotted.
- Break the ice. Don't chat aimlessly about something that's not important. Rather, briefly mention something friendly, benign and short like the weather, an upcoming holiday, a local sports team, or something humorous that happened in the news. Doctors spend their whole day under stress and time limits, and breaking that tension might be just what it takes to lighten the mood and free up your doctor to show his friendly side.
- Once the ice has cracked or broken, remember to continue being respectful of your doctor's time.
- If you feel as if you've experienced that compassion and friendliness you've looked for, then thank your doctor. Shake his hand. A thank you from you for being the kind of doctor whose bedside manner you appreciate may improve your chances of seeing that good bedside manner again.
Are All Doctors Capable of Good Bedside Manner?
Probably not.
One way to measure whether you can continue working with a doctor is by asking yourself whether this doctor would be the one you would want to break the news to you if you had a terminal disease, or a short period to live. Would this be the doctor you would want to see out your last days with?
If not, and if you can't find a comfortable conversation level, then it will be time to find a new doctor.
One last word of advice: Remember that nice does not equal competent. If you have to choose between the two, choose the latter.
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Have you had success in helping to improve your doctor's bedside manner? His or her conversations and therefore quality of care for you? Please share them by choosing "Share Your Ideas" below.
