Communication Skills Mentoring Program

Communication Skills in the News

Source: AAOS Headline News

Date: August 13, 2002

Study: female doctors' communications more patient-centered

Female primary care physicians engage in more communication that can be considered patient centered and have longer visits than their male colleagues, according to a meta-analysis in the Aug. 14 issue of JAMA. Medical visits with female physicians are, on average, 2 minutes (10%) longer than those with male physicians. Female physicians engage in significantly more active partnership behaviors, positive talk, psychosocial counseling, psychosocial question asking, and emotionally focused talk. There were no gender differences evident in the amount, quality, or manner of biomedical information giving or social conversation. The researchers said limited studies exist outside of primary care, and gender-related practice patterns in some subspecialties may differ from those evident in primary care.

JAMA Aug. 14, 2002 issue

Source: JAMA 2002;288:756-764.

The abstract is at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/288/6/756

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