In addition, belittling patients and using sarcasm, while immensely personally gratifying, will not earn you any points or improve your ability to personally connect to patients and their families. Being receptive toward patients’ own online research may help improve their sense of empowerment. While this may sound counterintuitive, encourage and congratulate patients for taking an interest in their health. This also gives the physician the opportunity to apply the information to patients’ specific issues. Patients who look up information online may actually be interested in learning and want to hear the physician’s thought process. We need to respond to their questions and theories, but it is crucial to do so without putting them down or alienating them. If improperly handled, this can immediately introduce distrust into the physician-patient relationship. Layperson misinterpretation and self-diagnosis can start things off on the wrong foot, especially if it feels like patients have an agenda or think they can replace us with an internet search. Googleĭealing with patients (or their family members) who come to the emergency department prepared with their own diagnosis based on an internet search can be challenging. Here are some tips for managing the internet’s influence on our patient interactions and professional reputations.įirst, let’s take a look at how we can best respond to our patients’ online self-education. The internet can be a great tool, but it can also complicate our practice and have far-reaching consequences if we aren’t careful with the information we share.
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