By paul takahashiThe Summer NorthwesternPhysicians should address their patients by their full names, according to researchers at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “We were trying to provide evidence on what patients want to be treated like by doctors,” said Gregory Makoul, the lead researcher and the director of the Center for Communication and Medicine at Feinberg. “It’s tangible and it’s something that all patients experience.”Makoul and his team of researchers studied 415 phone survey responses and analyzed how patients wished to be greeted by a physician. The study was published on June 11 in the Archives of Internal Medicine and was funded by the American Board of Medical Specialities Research and Education Foundation.The researchers found that 78 percent of respondents reported they want their physicians to shake their hand at their first meeting. About 56 percent of patients want physicians to introduce themselves using their full names.”It’s more than a greeting… it makes patients feel better about the encounter and the relationship,” Makoul said. “It’s important on a number of levels.”A professional greeting generates trust in the physician-patient relationship and increases patient safety, Makoul said. Although there are systems set in place for patient verification, saying patients’ names out loud lowers the risk of error. Although the study found that nearly all the respondents wished to be addressed by name, the reality didn’t match up with the patients’ expectations. When the researchers studied 123 videos of first encounters between physicians and patients, only half of the physicians addressed the patient by name. About 83 percent of physicians shook hands in the videos. Makoul advised, however, to be sensitive to “nonverbal cues that might indicate whether patients are open to this behavior.” “Communication is fundamental,” Makoul said. “Physicians have their own style and we are providing evidence for some of the elements they may wish to incorporate into their style.”

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