• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
EHR/Health IT, Patient experience

Doctors as Victims of Screen Positioning

February 12, 2016 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

I had dinner recently with a pediatrician friend who was dinged on a patient experience survey for not having eye contact. Her response was that the computer was in the wrong place. Not her problem, she argued, but rather an issue of clinic space design. Hmm.

When technology becomes perfect it will respond to us. Until then, we have to work with our technology and within our spaces. Solutions in a situation like this might include:

  • Moving the computer
  • Finding another room
  • Learning to balance screen use with face-to-face dialog.

IMG_2348I’ve never had a complaint about eye contact because I draw like a crazy man in front of a huge white board. When you draw pictures, you’re never faulted for failure to engage. Encopresis managed pictionary-style is hard to forget.

And parents almost universally take pictures of what I draw. Last week I had a mother ask me to actually be in the picture next to my white board. When was the last time you took a picture of your doctor with the content he had created for you? More importantly, when was the last time you took a picture of a doctor who didn’t engage with you?

You get my point.

But here’s what’s key: I spend the first 10-15 minutes of a new patient evaluation getting my data….in front of the screen just like every other provider in the free world. Just like every doctor that people complain about. But I let families know that they’re in for only a few minutes of Q&A with me typing furiously like the counter lady at the airport. But then it’s done. After that it’s mano y mano and eye-to-eye. The most important part.

We choose to be the victims of technology. Or not.

You might be interested in how I structure a patient visit. 

Related Articles

  • When Data Meets Doctors
  • Patient Experience and the Art of Visiting
  • Doctors as Victims of Technology

Tagged With: Doctoring 101, Patient experience

Related Articles

  • When Data Meets Doctors
  • Patient Experience and the Art of Visiting
  • Doctors as Victims of Technology

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Will the Future Need Doctors?

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

Reactive and Creative Spaces

The Rise of Medicine’s Creative Class

Health Care and the Visibility-Value Continuum

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy