Listen to your patient.

This is becoming a bit of a buzz-phrase if that is a thing. Listen to your patient, listen to your patient, listen to your patient.

To be honest it is a bit confusing to me. Maybe I just don’t understand the context of those saying this, but how are providers NOT listening to their patients?

Short rant begins now. I don’t understand how countless providers could not give patients the time of day and throw a solution at them. Any physical therapist worth their salt knows that about 75% of your “diagnosis” is made in the subjective portion of the exam. Not only that but in order to make a patient’s treatment work for them, we need to know what they do, what their hobbies are, who the heck they are. Even if we got all of that we still need to convince the patient that we give a rip about them. How are people doing that without listening…what the heck is going on in clinics all over the country.

Rant over.

I think the listening problem is actually a caring problem. Providers that aren’t listening to their people don’t care about their people. I don’t think I am over-exaggerating that point. It is simply our job to listen well and help our patients.

Please. I’m not going to plead with you to listen to your patients…that is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot. I’m pleading with you to care about your patients. I know you care for them but let’s starting caring about them. This will solve a large number of problems.