Rx for a Better Doctor’s Visit

Feel like you can’t get a word in edgewise at the doctor’s office?

No, it’s not your imagination.

Patients talk for 18 seconds, on the average, before being interrupted by their doctor, says Richard Frankel, a sociolinguist at the University of Rochester and Highland Hospital.

That time span, based on a sample of 1,000 doctor-patient visits, is the same as Frankel found in 1984 study.

But the situation is far from futile. “Patients should feel free to interrupt the physician as much as the physician interrupts them,” Frankel advises. If the doctor starts asking questions about one area, for instance, and you have more concerns, speak up: “This is one concern,” you might tell him, “but I have others.”

Take a list of questions. “Ask the doctor to staple that list to the chart,” Frankel says. That way, questions not addressed in one visit can be broached the next.

Doctors aren’t entirely to blame, of course. Patients often don’t bring up their greatest concern first, some research finds. Instead, they work up to their biggest worry, and then feel frustrated if they don’t get to air it.

Fragmented doctor-patient talks may not be entirely curable, Frankel suspects. His co-researcher, Dr. Howard Beckman, recently invited his daughter’s third-grade class to act out doctor-patient roles.

Guess what? “The children playing doctors interrupted the children playing patients,” Frankel says with a chuckle.

It took, oh, about 18 seconds.