People with significant injuries, painful functional limitations or symptoms of illnesses go to medical doctors for a reason. They need a professional to evaluate their condition and diagnose them. A doctor has years of training and experience that help them determine the underlying cause of symptoms and the best treatment options.
Patients often need to see a doctor in order to obtain a referral to a specialist or a prescription for medication. They rely on doctors as experts in human anatomy and medical conditions. Most medical doctors want to do right by their patients, but they may not have enough time to spend with each patient they see. The intense pressure on doctors to keep appointments short can lead to preventable medical mistakes when they don’t give patients an opportunity to express their concerns.
Most doctors only listen for a few seconds
When patients see a doctor, they may need to explain unusual symptoms that they experienced recently. Unfortunately, they may only get through the first one or two symptoms before the doctor interrupts them. Research into the behavior of modern medical professionals paints a grim picture of the average medical appointment.
Researchers have found that most doctors only listen for 11 seconds on average before reaching a conclusion or interrupting the patient to ask a question. That rush to judgment might mean that the doctor never gets the whole picture. They can misdiagnose a patient or fail to diagnose them all together. Both situations can lead to a poor outcome for the patient involved.
Patients can improve their chances of effectively communicating their concerns by keeping a list of symptoms they need to relate to the doctor and a list of questions that they want to ask. That way, even if a doctor interrupts them, they can still effectively communicate their main concerns before the end of the appointment.
In scenarios where doctors do not diagnose patients or diagnose them improperly because they did not listen, a patient may have experienced medical malpractice. Diagnostic failures are a common and damaging type of medical malpractice. Patients who speak up when doctors fail in basic professional obligations can potentially demand accountability from the professional who has failed them or the company that put the physician in a position to fail.