School of Medicine professor Daniel R. Wolpaw’s article, “Seeing Eye to Eye,” was recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The article discusses the importance of actually sitting down at the patient’s bedside and having a conversation with him or her. Wolpaw uses his own experience when making rounds with students, interns and residents to show how interactions can improve.
“Although trainees evinced a certain level of predictable discomfort with being handed the talking stool, they quickly acknowledged the way in which the bedside conversation changed,” he wrote. “Presentations shifted to a whole new level, figuratively as well as literally.”