I gave a talk recently at the BMJ Master class for Doctors on telling them what they can do to delight their patients. It was actually just a " back to basics " talk - stuff about the importance of having a good bedside manner; of being kind to your patients; of being empathetic; and of respecting patients and spending time with them , in order to increase trust. Everything I said was very simple but not always easy to do in practice. Improving bedside manner for doctors is a bit like talking about celibacy for teenagers - it's a concept which is easy to understand, but hard to put in practice.
Most doctors suffer from the delusion that they themselves have an extremely good bedside manner , unlike most of their colleagues. It’s easy to understand why. All of us have high self esteem, and we all think we do a good job in our professional life. After all, doesn't the fact that our…
