Pearls on enhancing the physician-patient relationship

Ob/Gyns are seeing more patients than ever before. According to a recent ACOG survey, the typical Ob/Gyn averages 95 office visits per week. Physicians also are devoting more time to administrative duties and less time to hospital rounds and clinic visits compared with recent years. Clearly, these changes make it harder for doctors to spend quality time with each of their patients.

But enhancing the patient-doctor relationship need not be difficult. In most cases, subtle gestures can have an enormous impact on patient satisfaction and continuity of care. Here, we depart from our usual Pearls focus, the recommendations of a single physician, to offer pointers from a number of Ob/Gyns located throughout the United States. They share pearls on topics ranging from the first-time Pap experience to making patients feel more comfortable during an office visit.