Communicating with the patient beyond the bedside We all know the importance of the doctor patient relationship, and this is why so much stress is laid on the doctor's bedside manner. Good doctors can communicate care and compassion to the patient, and patients are comforted, because they know that not only is the doctor competent, he also cares about him , and will do his best to help him to get better. Good bedside manner is an intangible skill which is often something mysterious, and is hard to emulate. While this still remains extremely important, I think we need to move beyond the bedside, because a lot of the care we provide is now done digitally.
This could be through Whatsapp or by email, and we need to cultivate equally good manners for these channels of communication with our patients as well. Doctors need to learn good digital manners as well. This can be easy to do, because…
