Bedside Manner Blog

Most people want health-care providers who communicate well and offer some level of conversation. Despite this obvious fact, some doctors don’t converse with their patients, and more importantly they don’t communicate at a most critical moment: when the patient is in distress or in pain. While every doctor responds to the screaming patient, only the perceptive observer reads body language to help him or her respond to less clearly expressed patients’ needs. Body language is a form of nonverbal communication ranging from the easy-to-read (laughing and crying: both of wh ...

Each professional must decide how to address patients and how they would prefer to be titled. Some doctors strive for a casual office while others prefer formality. There is a way to have both and to please most everyone. The way to greet patients varies from one geographic or socioeconomic setting to another. As a rule of thumb, staff should address young patients (under thirty years of age) by first name and older patients (over thirty years of age) by surnames. Doctors may use first names for most patients under sixty years of age. A twenty-year-old calling an eighty-year-old wom ...