The bedside exam has become increasingly irrelevant, as technology and tests have largely supplanted physical diagnosis skills.
Pauline Chen interviews Stanford’s Abraham Verghese, who also wrote last year’s excellent NEJM piece on the demise of the physical exam, and he provides some provocative insight.
Dr. Verghese calls the physical exam “an important ritual” that still matters to patients. “If as a doctor you shortchange the ritual, you end up making patients feel you aren’t interested. They lose trust.”
And for those who still aren’t convinced by that argument, consider this: “We could inaugurate the president by an e-mail from the Chief Justice, but there’s a reason we have an inauguration.”
Related posts:
- How the physical exam can affect the doctor-patient relationship
- iPatients and the demise of the bedside physical exam
- Controlling patient expectations
- Are doctors finding the physical exam useless and obsolete?
- The life of a standardized patient
- The neck
- The pharynx
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{ 2 comments }
I know this may have previously been discussed in one of your other posts… but is it possible to naturally have better bed-side manner than a colleague? If one isn’t so lucky, how can the necessary skills be acquired? After all, they say “practice makes perfect”, but I don’t think it’s feasible to practice bed-side manner on real patients until you’re up to speed.
sadly, documented physical exam findings will never carry as much weight in the courtroom as a negative ct scan. ah, screw it. let’s just order the ct.
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