SPECIAL ARTICLE
Patients' Perspectives on Ideal Physician Behaviors

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We incorporated the views of patients to develop a comprehensive set of ideal physician behaviors. Telephone interviews were conducted in 2001 and 2002 with a random sample of 192 patients who were seen in 14 different medical specialties of Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz, and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Interviews focused on the physician-patient relationship and lasted between 20 and 50 minutes. Patients were asked to describe their best and worst experiences with a physician in the Mayo Clinic system and to give specifics of the encounter. The interviewers independently generated and validated 7 ideal behavioral themes that emerged from the interview transcripts. The ideal physician is confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful, and thorough. Ways that physicians can incorporate clues to the 7 ideal physician behaviors to create positive relationships with patients are suggested.

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PATIENTS AND METHODS

This study was part of a 6-month investigation of the patient experience at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz, and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn, during 2001 and 2002. The Mayo Foundation Institutional Review Board approved the research protocol. To strengthen generalizability, we selected a random sample of patients who had been recently served in 1 of 14 medical areas: cardiology, cardiac surgery, dermatology, emergency medicine, endocrinology, executive medicine, family medicine,

RESULTS

Seven ideal physician behaviors (behavioral themes) were identified in the research: confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful, and thorough. These behaviors are consistent with existing research,6, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 offer a balance of breadth and specificity, and hold promise for empirical investigation. Definitions of these behaviors and representative quotations are presented in Table 1. All definitions are from the patient's perspective.

All 192 respondents

DISCUSSION

Medical services are different from other services. Unlike “want” services, such as telecommunications and entertainment, health care is a “need” service that patients often dread. Serving a customer who arrives with some combination of illness, pain, anxiety, and fear presents a distinct service challenge to physicians compared with other services. Medical customers are inherently under stress. Moreover, medical services are highly complex and technical. The patient is at a considerable

CONCLUSIONS

Interviews with 192 patients receiving medical care within 14 medical specialties reveal a profile of 7 ideal physician behaviors: confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful, and thorough. These behaviors are not hypothetical; they are from the voices of patients who had a recent medical service experience at Mayo Clinic and were asked to describe their best and worst experiences with a Mayo Clinic physician. That patients discussed their physicians' behavior rather than

Acknowledgments

We want doctors who can empathize and understand our needs as a whole person. We put doctors on a pedestal right next to God, yet we don't want them to act superior, belittle us, or intimidate us. We want to feel that our doctors have incredible knowledge in their field. But every doctor needs to know how to apply their knowledge with wisdom and relate to us as plain folks who are capable of understanding our disease and treatment. It's probably difficult for doctors after many years and

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    Direct research expenses for this study were provided by Mayo Foundation.

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