Long Day

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Thursday, July 05, 2012 4:52 pm Email this article

​Nothing in medical school prepares you for the range of bizarre (or wonderful) ideas and behaviors people have, that you learn about by talking to them for more than five minutes. Most doctors never have this pleasure because they don’t spend time listening to patients. The doctors aren’t edified, educated or improved. And the patients aren’t benefited as much as they could be; if the medicine doesn’t fix the problem, the problem doesn't get fixed.

But most of the diseases seen in patients (counting the number of patients, not the number of diseases) are self-induced, by stress, poor lifestyle and false beliefs. The opportunity to prevent those diseases or to help the patients with them is missed. I recommend to every doctor that he or she designate one day of the week as “long day”, or one morning, to spend extra time, 30 minutes with each patient talking, conversing, learning about the patient as an individual. Not focusing only on medical issues. Letting the topics vary. Allowing the patient to lead the conversation part of the time. True, the doctor will make less money on “long day”, but the doctor’s life-skills will be enriched and the patients helped. If you, doctor, think people aren’t fun and interesting, if you think all value can be measured in dollars, you don’t belong in medicine. (The other thing doctors should do is to READ and QUESTION AUTHORITY. Haven't I said that before!!!)

Articles on the same subject can be found here:

• What I've Learned from Patients