Healthcare and medicine are chock full of studies, a few of which zero in on physicians as the subjects. Here are nine interesting findings about physicians' work habits, handwriting, apparel, Internet preferences and diets.
1. Physicians keep their patients waiting for an average of 38 minutes, according to a paper published in The American Journal of Managed Care in May. Twenty-three of those minutes are usually spent in the waiting room, with the remaining 15 in the exam room. The paper showed a positive correlation between longer wait times and decreased patient satisfaction.
On the other hand, 90.7 percent of 1,500 tracked patients arrived early with an average of 24.1 minutes before their appointments in a 2013 study by The John Hopkins School of Medicine.
2. Sometimes it's hard to get a word in. Patients only spoke for an average of 12 seconds before their physician interrupted them in a study of 60 routine primary care office visits among 22 family practice and internal medicine residents. The study, published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, found physicians spent an average of 11 minutes with patients during appoints, with patients speaking for about four minutes. According to the study, fewer female physicians interrupted patients when they were speaking than male physicians, but all physicians interrupted female patients more often than male patients. Years of residency also influences rates of interruption among physicians. First-year residents reportedly interrupted patients more frequently than third-year residents. Overall, frequent interruptions were associated with lower satisfaction levels among physicians.
3. Physicians look at a computer screen for approximately one-third of the time during appointments with patients, according to a United Press International report. Eye-contact between physicians and patients is reduced by the use of computers during appointments, not only because the physician is using them, but because patients look at the computer too even if they cannot see or understand what is on the screen, according to the report. The report was based on research from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., that analyzed physicians' eye-gaze patterns for 100 physician-patient visits. Findings identified different eye gaze patterns during visits with EHRs than with paper charts.
4. Physicians make mistakes. According to The Wall Street Journal, one of the biggest misconceptions about physicians is that they perform at a 100 percent success rate. While physicians' extensive medical training and experience makes them the most reliable source for diagnosing and treating medical conditions, they sometimes make diagnoses without certainty it is correct. A 2012 Johns Hopkins study found that in intensive care-unit alone, diagnostic errors accounted for the same number of deaths as breast cancer in the United States. According to Dr. Atul Grover, the chief public policy officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, too many people believe physicians are infallible geniuses, and automatic deference to them can have potential consequences for patients.
5. Physicians turn to Wikipedia, too. Wikipedia is a top source for healthcare information for both physicians and patients, and 50 percent of physicians consult Wikipedia for information on specific conditions, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics' "Engaging patients through social media" report. Interestingly, the report found a direct correlation between prescription volumes and Wikipedia page visits.
The realization that physicians consult Wikipedia for information raises concerns since accuracy is not always guaranteed given its crowd-sourced content. To account for this, some physicians have contributed to an effort called "Wikiproject Medicine" to help edit and improve healthcare content on the site. With the understanding that many patients use the internet to look up medical conditions, some physicians have even expressed they have a moral obligation to improve the information on the internet, according to The Atlantic.
6. Physicians' handwriting is no less legible than that of other health professionals. Conventional wisdom holds that physicians have worse handwriting than the average Jane or Joe, but a 1996 study led by Donald Berwick, MD, former acting CMS administrator, challenged this myth. The study compared the handwriting legibility of 209 healthcare professionals, including 82 physicians, finding physicians' handwriting no less legible than that of non-physicians. Interestingly, the people with the less legible handwriting were associated with being male and being an executive.
7. Healthcare is changing, but a white coat remains an important symbol in medicine, and patients perceive their physician's abilities differently depending on his or her attire. A 2013 study in the UK found 70 percent of patients prefer their physicians to wear white coats. Study participants were asked to rank the following attire options in order of preference: professional dress with white coat (1), professional dress without white coat (2), surgical scrubs with white coat (3) and surgical scrubs without white coat (4). They chose image 1 (65 percent), image 3 (39 percent), image 4 (26 percent) and then image 2 (14 percent).
These findings closely align with those from a 2005 study published in the American Journal of Medicine, which found patients preferred white coats (76 percent), surgical scrubs (10 percent), business dress (9 percent) and then casual dress (5 percent). Respondents also reported that they were significantly more willing to share their social, sexual and psychological problems with the physician who is professionally dressed.
8. Physicians don't always follow their own medical advice. Physicians may choose treatment options differently depending on whether they are caring for a patient or for themselves, according to findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2011. A survey of 940 primary care physicians indicated that most physicians are more likely to use treatment with a higher risk of death and lower negative side effects, though they wouldn't make that recommendation for patients. Sixty-three percent of participating physicians would refuse a potentially lifesaving treatment for the avian flu to avoid possible side effects, but only 49 percent said they would encourage their patients to do the same. The discrepancy between what physicians recommend to their patients and what the way they would choose to treat themselves suggests that patients should play a more active role in their care.
9. And they might be the health experts, but they're not necessarily healthier than their patients. Thirty-four percent of physicians are overweight, compared to 35 percent of the U.S. population, according to Medscape's 2014 Physician Lifestyle Report. Of the 35 percent of overweight physicians, 8 percent identified themselves to be obese. The report showed about 40 percent of overweight physicians eat a "typical American" diet consisting of meat, white carbohydrates and high fat. Only 16 percent of overweight or obese physicians eat weight-loss or calorie-restriction diets. Of all physician specialties, general surgery is the most overweight, with 49 percent of surveyed general surgeons identifying themselves as overweight or obese.