What courses do you think physicians should take - or take more of - prior to practicing medicine?

I agree with customer service,including eye contact.

I would agree that some doctors could use some maybe some more training in “bedside manner” if that’s what you mean by customer service. But most of the physicians I know of are pretty well versed in basic nutrition and if they feel you need a more specialized nutrition plan they will most likely refer you to a nutritionist or dietician.

As to the statistics class… after four years of college studying the sciences and years of medical school, internship, residency…. they know how to evaluate research studies. Physicians are scientists and if you encounter one that doesn’t understand the difference between correlation and causation, e.g. doesn’t understand the scientific method, or can’t “weed out the b.s. in research studies” then you might want check and see if he or she actually has a valid license to practice medicine.

Totally agree. Customer service and nutrition!

And go to a medical school that teaches them that just because they don’t have a diagnosis, the knee-jerk reaction shouldn’t be to diagnose their patient as crazy (as if that’ll ever happen)! It’s flat out abusive IMO. I’ve heard some people call it “playing God”.

How to Say “I Don’t Know” 101

Doctors are depended on to be a source of information, and I think this results in expressions of confidence in areas that the doctor is not sufficiently knowledgeable.

@hominid Exactly.

What @lillycoyote said. I am curious to know what prompted this question – it sounds like you ended up with a bad doctor, and are saying that all doctors are therefore bad. Perhaps you should take a statistics course, @tedibear. ;)

When I saw my PCP for a wellness check-up before my knee surgery four weeks ago and told him my official diagnosis, he said cheerfully, “That’s a new one for me.” Then I demonstrated how the scar tissue catching on the knee replacement both looked and sounded. When he heard the audible “crack,” he jumped.

When he entered it (patellar clunk) into the medical data base and insurance code, it came up. I love my doctors. They treat me as an equal partner.

Before my surgery, the surgeon took an audio-video of the patellar clunk with his iPhone. He is going to use it when he gives a paper at a conference soon. He said it was only the second one he had witnessed in his ten years of orthopedic surgery experience.

#1 I’m with @hominid, on I don’t know.

Customer care? I’d just be happy if more of them treated their patients as customers, instead of children or minions.

Oh, and how about a little Time Management?

What I find lacking is beyond bedside manner, it’s more like family counseling 101. Most times people seeing a doctor are not having a good day, and the best doctors are empathetic. Yet quite a few are not.

The “how not to be an arsehole” course should be a compulsory course every year of a doctor’s career.

I remember many many years ago I was in hospital with TB. The ward doctor wanted to run a bank of tests, including an HIV test. When I told him I’d had one less than six months previously as part of a full bank of STI tests (which all came back negative) because my then girlfriend and I wanted to stop using condoms, he noted that down. The consultant came storming in to my room later the same day demanding to know why I’d done something like that and if I was gay.

He was a fucking arsehole, and I told him that.

@ibstubro Generally, either the insurance or the group the doctor works for dictates how much time a doctor gets to spend on a patient (as I recall an average of 10 to 15 minutes per patient, less if they can help it). And for good medicine, it’s always less than it should be. You can’t properly treat someone if you don’t have a chance to get to know them, at least a little bit. Doctors have my sympathy in that department, anyway.

The best doctors don’t take insurance, so they have time to get a proper history and actually spend enough time to be able to treat the patient, instead of the disease.

Ethics.

I would like to see all doctors be required to take a course on natural remedies/herbal therapy during their third or fourth year. That way, more doctors would understand the value herbal and related supplements can contribute to overall well being. At the same time, a year-long course in clinical listening, during which they master the lost art of actually listening to their patients, and adjusting their treatment regimens to actually fit each patient is critically needed.

I can’t imagine treating someone for a medical condition, and not having the time to hear the average/reasonable patient input. Asked questions, even, @snowberry.

Isn’t that the line between greed and ethics?

Many, most, doctors have empathy, but they are constrained by the AMA and medical establishment from showing it.

What politics would you inform patients on? Patients or Politics?

@ibstubro Well, the doctors you’re talking about charge by the type of visit. If they spend very much time with you, or if they look at/talk about more than one thing, they call it an expanded visit, and charge you more. My doctor (who doesn’t take insurance) charges about $100 more or less. I forget.

Anyway, my doc knew me by name after the first visit, and spent over an hour with me the first time. With my doc, there’s less chance for missed diagnosis, and certainly more time for kindness, customer service, etc. It’s worth it to me.

I wish some would receive more training in radiology. It is an eternal frustration in my line of work to speak to doctors who don’t understand when abdomen x-rays should be erect or supine, if a patient is physically capable of having an OPG, and don’t understand the principles of radiation (ranging to an irrational terror of it to a completely blasé attitude).

Thankfully I work at a place with mostly great doctors, but I’ve seen how bad it can get in previous jobs.

All – Thank you for your responses. It has been a very tiring work week, so I will come back to this. :-)

Acting classes.

If they have no empathy, they should at least be trained in pretending it.