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Patients often complain that their doctors don’t listen. Although there are probably a few doctors who truly are tone deaf, most are reasonably empathic human beings, and I wonder why even these doctors seem prey to this criticism. I often wonder whether it is sheer neuron overload on the doctor side that leads to this problem. Sometimes it feels as though my brain is juggling so many competing details, that one stray request from a patient—even one that is quite relevant—might send the delicately balanced three-ring circus tumbling down.
One day, I tried to work out how many details a doctor needs to keep spinning in her head in order to do a satisfactory job, by calculating how many thoughts I have to juggle in a typical office visit. (Is that even possible?)
Read Danielle's essay in The Lancet.
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Danielle Ofri is a writer and practicing internist at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients.
View the YouTube book trailer.
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