Doctors and Social Etiquette

Beauty and The Geek is a hit television show because the men on the show, the geeks, are all very intelligent, well educated, well accomplished in academia, science and mathematics — and complete neandrothals when it comes to socializing. These doctor-types have done well in school and in jobs where their intellect is valued, but they have no clue about how to treat other people socially.

Doctors often fall into this geek category for several reasons:

* They spend so much of their lives working in rigorous academic institutions and in rigorous and live-saving jobs that they don’t “come up for air” much in the real world.

* Doctors often marry spouses who accept and enable this lack of social skills displayed by the doctor spouse the same way the family of the doctor has done.

* Many people who go into medicine and medical professions are not socially aware the same way people who go into sales, business or other more socially dependent fields, are.

How to modify the behavior of a doctor with less than stellar social skills:

* A doctor has to be aware of people’s reactions before he can decide to modify them. Many doctors don’t realize that their patients or colleagues or others are stunned by their bad behavior. Recognizing social cues exhibited by patients and others is a big job for many of these doctors to take on.

* Learning to walk is no easy task, and for doctors without social skills, once they recognize disappointment or hurt in a patient, they don’t know what to do. They need a couple of lines to learn and use and these lines are not always “I’m in charge” lines. They’re more “I see how you’re feeling,” lines. For instance, a doctor may use this line to advance his etiquette: “You look upset.” And then say nothing and allow the patient or other person to respond. Sound simple? For you it may be, for the doctor, it’s not second nature.

* Quit rushing. Doctors don’t always put themselves in patients or other peoples’ shoes because they’re so involved in their own lives. If they can just slow down and spend a minute making small talk or just smiling and saying nothing for twenty seconds — which will seem like an eternity to them — they may gather information about the situation that they wouldn’t have had if they were rushing.