ArticleJournal of medical ethics2011
Courteous but not curious: how doctors' politeness masks their existential neglect. A qualitative study of video-recorded patient consultations.
Article in Journal of medical ethics, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 133 citations in OpenAlex.
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- The Heidelberg Decision Aid for Patients With Lung Cancer (HELP)—Findings of a Randomized Controlled Trial.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2024Trial
- Long-term effect of communication training on the relationship between physicians' self-efficacy and performance.Patient education and counseling · 2013Trial
- Healthcare professionals' experiences of advance care planning conversations with frail older adults admitted to acute geriatric hospital units: a nested qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2026Observational
- "To Have the Encounter with Our Own Finiteness in that Existential Way": Descriptions of Existential Experience in Patients with Cancer and Major Depression Participating in Psilocybin-Assisted Group Therapy.Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Care in the era of digital health: experiences from Norwegian general practitioners.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Article
- Towards a definition of an existential approach in cancer patients: a co-produced scoping review.PloS one · 2025Article
- Family concerns in organ donor conversations: a qualitative embedded multiple-case study.Critical care (London, England) · 2024Article
- Transforming self-experienced vulnerability into professional strength: a dialogical narrative analysis of medical students' reflective writing.Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice · 2024Article
- Stimulating existential communication - first steps towards enhancing health professionals' reflective skills through blended learning.PEC innovation · 2023Article
- Regaining Autonomy in a Holding Environment: Patients' Perspectives on the Existential Communication with Physicians When Suffering from a Severe, Chronic Illness: A Qualitative Nordic Study.Journal of religion and health · 2023Article
- Facilitators and Barriers to a Hospital-Based Communication Skills Training Programme: An Interview Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Optimising planned medical education strategies to develop learners' person-centredness: A realist review.Medical education · 2022Review
- Medical students' experiences when empathizing with patients' emotional issues during a medical interview - a qualitative study.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Breaking the patientification process - through co-creation of care, using old arctic survival knowledge.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2021Article
- Person-centered care (PCC): the people's perspective.International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care · 2021Article
- Factors affecting patient enablement in an Asian setting: a mixed methods study.Singapore medical journal · 2020Article
- Relationship based care - how general practice developed and why it is undermined within contemporary healthcare systems.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2019Article
- Article
- Reflection in medical education: intellectual humility, discovery, and know-how.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo study how doctors care for their patients, both medically and as fellow humans, through observing their conduct in patient-doctor encounters.
designQualitative study in which 101 videotaped consultations were observed and analysed using a Grounded Theory approach, generating explanatory categories through a hermeneutical analysis of the taped consultations.
settingA 500-bed general teaching hospital in Norway.
participants71 doctors working in clinical non-psychiatric departments and their patients.
resultsThe doctors were concerned about their patients' health and how their medical knowledge could be of service. This medical focus often over-rode other important aspects of the consultations, especially existential elements. The doctors actively directed the focus away from their patients' existential concerns onto medical facts and rarely addressed the personal aspects of a patient's condition, treating them in a biomechanical manner. At the same time, however, the doctors attended to their patients with courteousness, displaying a polite and friendly attitude and emphasising the relationship between them.
conclusionsThe study suggests that the main failing of patient-doctor encounters is not a lack of courteous manners, but the moral offence patients experience when existential concerns are ignored. Improving doctors' social and communication skills cannot resolve this moral problem, which appears to be intrinsically bound to modern medical practice. Acknowledging this moral offence would, however, be the first step towards minimising the effects thereof.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.