The patient–doctor conversation

By choosing an example of both a well intentioned, caring physician, and an informed, intelligent patient, Ofri highlights that issues of miscommunication occur even under conditions of high-quality, humanistic health care. Citing the classic study that showed the average time to interruption by a physician of a patient's story is 12 seconds, Ofri succeeds in changing her practice to give the patient unlimited time at the front end of the visit to describe what is going on and why the patient came to the doctor. Ofri examines the realm of prejudice, implicit bias, and the health effects of race, gender, addiction history, and other differences between patient and doctor in terms of diagnosis and treatment. Prejudice affects health: “African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities consistently receive less-aggressive cancer treatment, fewer cardiac catheterizations, fewer screening tests, less mental health treatment.