Patients complain that doctors talk too much about themselves

First impressions make a difference in how well physicians and patients communicate, researchers said.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. July 23/30, 2007.

The next time you meet a new patient, shake his or her hand -- but don't ramble about your summer vacation.

Patients want a welcome handshake and a greeting by name the first time they see a doctor, a new study found. It's an introduction that starts to build rapport and makes visitors comfortable.

What patients don't want in the first encounter are doctors who talk about themselves and waste the patients' time, another study shows.

"The introductory phase sets the stage for what comes after that," said internist Gail Gazelle, MD, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and president of MD Can Help, a medical advocacy service for patients. "Patients respond to cues from their doctors. If the doctor says, 'Hello, it's nice to see you,' that sets a very different tone than a doctor rushing into a room with, 'What's going on?' "

A study in the June 11 Archives of Internal Medicine examined patient expectations of greetings in first-time visits with doctors. A national phone survey of 415 patients from 2004 to 2005 found that 78% of patients want doctors to shake hands, while 18% do not want a handshake.

Doctors did fairly well on that front, based on the study's analysis of 123 videotaped new patient visits to 19 primary care offices in Chicago and Burlington, Vt. Patients and doctors shook hands 83% of the time.

The patient survey also found that 50% of them want to be greeted by first name, 17% by last name and 24% by both. The tapes showed that doctors called the patient by first name 14% of the time, by surname 33%.