Courteous Bedside Manners Are Associated With Improved Patient Recovery And Satisfaction
An article in Becker’s Hospital Review reported that hospital interns generally failed to use “five key communications strategies, including introducing themselves, explaining their role in the patient’s care, touching the patient, asking open-ended questions such as ‘How are you feeling today?’ and sitting down with the patient. The five actions are components of what is termed ‘etiquette-based medicine,’ as described in a 2008 New England Journal of Medicine article by Michael W. Kahn, MD.”
“With internal medicine in particular, especially these days, it’s about chronic medical problems and chronic care, where much of what we need to do is motivate the patient to provide self-care and self-management to improve their health over the long term … You can’t do that if you’re not connecting with the patient very well.”