Why Is It Important For The Physician To Remember The Names Of Patients And How This Skill Can Be Enhanced?

The job of a physician involves meeting with several patients daily to treat them. The physician is required to create a strong relationship with the clients which should be based on trust. Patients will trust you if only you give them reasons to trust. Even in other circumstances, we do not tend to trust people who give us no solid reasons for trusting them. A physician should show great dedication towards his work and should deal with every single patient with a lot of care. Every patient should be given equal importance. It is very important for the physician to remember each and every patient by name because it helps a lot to develop a good relationship with the patients. 

While it is quite simple and easy task to learn a name when a patient comes to you and tells his or her name but this also needs to be kept in mind that a doctor does not deal with only one patient per day; instead he gets to deal with the number of patients on a daily basis which makes it quite difficult for him to remember the name of all the patients. This article intends to highlight how doctors can enhance their skills of remembering names in order to develop a good relationship with their patients. 

Listen carefully

Whenever a patient comes, it is the duty of the doctor to give considerable attention to what he or she says to him. The very first thing a patient should be asked about should be his or her name. Try to listen to the name carefully and repeat it in your mind sometimes so that you can memorize it. You will be able to do so only if you are paying an adequate amount of attention. 

Note down the names:

In order to memorize the name in a better way, doctors can also note down the name of the patient right after they tell them.  

Recall the names before meeting the patient again:

Before you go to meet the patient for the second time, recall the name.

How Are Family Physicians Different From General Physicians?

This question creates a lot of confusion in patients as well as medical students. Although both follow the approach of primary patient care and seem same, however, there are a few minute differences which make family medicine as a field totally different from general practice. 

Family medicine and general practice differ from one another in terms of the level of training, the focus of care and clinical approaches. Following are mentioned some of the major differences between the two specialties for further clarity of students as well as the patients.

Role of General physicians is trained to deal with medical issues of adults only. They might be able to provide medical advice for primary issues for all, however, for a more specialized disease or problem they will suggest the patient see the respective medical specialist. On the other hand, the family physician is trained to provide medical care to all members of the family regardless of their age and gender.

Both families, as well as general physicians, acquire the same training in medical school. However, family physicians have to gain additional training for one year after completion of their residency. General medical training is focused on common general medical conditions, along with basic experience in each of the internal medicine subspecialties (such as endocrinology, rheumatology, and infectious diseases) and neurology. 

Moreover, to facilitate comprehensive care for adults, general physicians are also provided experience in psychiatry, dermatology, ophthalmology, office gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, non-operative orthopedics, palliative medicine, sleep medicine, geriatrics, and rehabilitation medicine. 

On the other hand, family medicine training is provided in specialized outpatient training centers in which trainees work throughout the course of their training. They are required to provide acute, chronic, and wellness care for a panel of continuity patients. Family medicine trainees must also have experiences in behavioral health issues, common skin diseases, population health, and health system management, and there is a particular emphasis on wellness and disease prevention.

Hence, regardless of having some major differences, both general and family physicians have their unique set of skills and significant roles in the care of adult patients and facilitating primary health care as per the practice setting and the specific requirement of the patient.

-Alan L. Melotek

2 Ways to Make Your Patients Happier

Any doctor can treat his patients and help them get healthy but there are very few doctors who not only treat their patients but also make them happier. The patients are important for your practice, you need them and to keep them you should first make them happy. Do you want to have happy patients? Here are two ways to make your patients happier. 

1) Smile

You know how important a smile is? A smile can literally make someone's day. You don't know how much your smile means to people around you. Imagine talking to someone with a smile on your face, the next person will get happy instantly. Your patient might have had a bad day, he might have had a boring day, suffering from some personal problems or struggling in his personal life. Anything can happen in the lives of your patients, they might need help and you can cheer them up with your smile. Greet them with a smile on your face, a small smile from your side can make them smile ear to ear. Your smile shows that you are interested in treating your patients. It will make them feel happy, your parents won't think that you are treating them for money only. They'll feel a good connection with you. 

2) Address patients by their names

Addressing someone by their name can make them feel really good. You might see a patient once in a few months, imagine calling him by his name when he comes to see you? What will be the effect of this on the patients? They will feel very important and a lot happier. You will be able to impress your patients by just remembering their names. So, try to make an effort and try to remember their names. This will help you get patients who stay with you for a long time. It's not easy to get patients who stay by your side always. Do this and you'll be able to impress your patients.

Qualities of a General Practitioner

A general practitioner is a physician. These doctors are usually responsible for treating minor diseases. They play a great role in our lives. If we have some pain in our chest, we won't visit a cardiologist right away. We will first visit a general practitioner. A general practitioner won't simply predict any critical disease. He will first look for other possibilities. For example, if you have pain in the chest, he will ask you if you hurt yourself in any way or could it be heartburn or something else. They won't simply ask you to visit a cardiologist. These professionals will conduct a few tests. They will ask you to visit a laboratory for the tests and get the results. They will check the results and give suggestions based on it. All the general practitioners are similar yet different from other doctors. Most of the people visit a general practitioner first before finally visiting a specialist. 

The physicians have to do a lot of work because they get to see many patients every day. If you're planning to become a general practitioner then here a few qualities of these professionals.

1) Always take note

The general practitioners see multiple patients every day. It is impossible to remember every patient. Every doctor makes sure to keep a record of his patients, the doctors like to give the prescriptions with files. General practitioners see their patients just like other doctors, but they know that they might be seeing the same patient multiple times so they make sure to record everything in their system. The problems faced by the patients and the prescriptions, everything is saved in the system. The doctors usually hire assistants for this, because they cannot do so many things at the same time.

2) Build relationships

As mentioned in the previous point, the general practitioners usually see the same patients multiple times. The guy who visited you last week for flu might see you again in a month for fever or something else. The general practitioners know that they'll be seeing their patients again so they believe in building relationships.