- If there’s no parking for the patient when they arrive for their appointment, they think you don’t care about them. So you’ve got to have a good parking situation.
- If the staff is rude when the patient calls to make an appointment, they think you don’t care about them.
Other ways of interacting with patients that convey empathy:
- I schedule a lot of patients per unit time so I run to the door of the room and when I get there, I stop. I open the door really slowly so patients will think, “Oh, he’s in no hurry,” which is part of being perceived as caring.
- I make a big deal of using the alcohol on the wall to cleanse my hands, because when they get in the car and drive home and they’re listening to a spot on National Public Radio talking about doctors who don’t wash their hands, I want them to remember that, “Dr. Feldman used that alcohol and protected me because he’s a caring doctor.”
- I try to sit down, look patients in the eye, shake hands and introduce myself to everybody in the room.
- I try to connect with patients and establish rapport
Does this guy think everybody is a 5 year old with such superficial (and creepy) observations such as "the doctor cares about me because I used the hand sanitizer". Most people are too sick, tired, dazed to notice. Also, hand sanitizer tends to be 99% alcohol and is highly flammable, thus not recommended if you're goig to use heat generating devices on a patient. Old fashioned soap and water first and ALWAYS you knob!!!!
