General Interest: If the Doctor is Listening, You Have 11 Seconds

General Interest: If the Doctor is Listening, You Have 11 Seconds
By: Susan Noakes
Submitted By: Michael Maury, UC-San Diego

As SP Educators, we understand the importance of good communication skills in medicine. If we study the research we know that it is a proven fact that open-ended questions are answered with more information. We use this fact to write and build cases that reward students with a more detailed history response for any open-ended questions asked. A US study found that only 36 percent of doctors started a patient visit with an open-ended question. The study also found that after an open-ended question is posed, the patient gets a median time of 11 seconds to answer before the doctor interrupts them. While it is important to continue our practices of encouraging open-ended questions, these data might make one pause to consider focusing on the aspect of listening completely to the answer that is being provided as well. Are we doing all we can as SP Educators to provide our students with the right communication skills to be the best doctors possible?

Read the full article at CBC News here.

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