Physicians Interrupting Patients

Excerpt

We read with interest the article by Singh Ospina and colleagues on issues with clinician interruptions during clinical encounters with patients.¹ We commend the authors’ effort in the research, but find their data interpretation self-contradictory. They commented that uninterrupted patients took a median of 6 s to state their concern and early interruption is unlikely to be beneficial at such early stage in the encounter. However, the clinicians interrupted the patient after a median of 11 s. It means at least half of the patients should have already elicited their concerns by then. Despite that, the patients’ agenda were elicited in only 36% of these encounters. …