In which I face the hard questions

Cross-posted – you know where. The Talking To Your Doctor blog!

Your book is called Talking to Your Doctor but really it’s doctors who need to learn how to talk to patients. Doesn’t this expect too much of us? After all, our doctors don’t have enough time to talk to us anyway.

Our intuition tells us that doctor-patient visits are subpar because there’s not enough time. However, research shows that patients and doctors can have satisfactory visits in countries where the general practitioner has even less time for the visit. In the book, I point out that it’s not so much the “clock time” devoted to the visit as it is the “visit time”: the attention, mindfulness, and concentration each party brings to the interaction.

 
Read more questions and answers at the National Physicians Alliance website.