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THE MENTALIST IN THE OFFICE

CORRECT THESE THREE POTENTIALLY DAMAGING BODY LANGUAGE EVENTS

MENTALISTS DO a lot of work reading body language and if you’ve heard me speak, you’ve probably seen me do some mentalism effects. Unlike those who use their skills for situations like jury selection and criminology, I do it mostly for fun. If you’re interested in the science, the “Dr. Borish” of mentalism, particularly facial expressions, can be found at paulekman.com. Here’s a mentalism primer of three commonly seen, potentially practice-damaging body language events for O.D.s to be aware of in practice.

1 INADVERTENT INATTENTIVENESS

It happened with paper charts and it’s happening more with EHR systems. Inadvertent inattentiveness: simply not recognizing that we cannot write (or type) and speak at the same time. More accurately, while we may do it via muscle memory (after a while, many of us can rapidly tab and click through an EHR record by using muscle memory, just like we were able to scribble in the correct box in a paper chart without looking at the box), we can’t focus on two things at once.

However, doing this is readily noticed by patients! A better strategy would be to alert the patient in advance and say, “Let me put some information into your computer record and then we can discuss what I’m finding.” While the silence may sound deafening, it serves as the perfect auditory break to tee up your upcoming discussion. This helps patient attentiveness.

2 POSTURING FOR YOUR PATIENTS

Much has been written about body posture and while it’s not a universal truth for everyone, there is one widely accepted generality that applies. Your overall posture can direct or inhibit the flow of dialogue in a conversation.

For example, when I perform and ask a volunteer a question, crossing my arms and slightly leaning back usually leads to a short and succinct answer vs. a longer one. If I want to have more of a back and forth banter, I’ll keep my arms at my side, have a slightly wider stance and lean in just a bit. While I do this for entertainment, I’ve personally observed hundreds of doctors interact with their patients. I can assure you this holds in a doctor-patient exchange also. Observe it with your staff when they interact with your patients.

The way to use this technique practically is to take better charge of patient discussions. For domineering personalities who won’t let you talk and keep interrupting, crossing your arms and slightly leaning back can get you better control of the conversation. For shy and timid patients, keep your arms at your side and lean forward slightly to accelerate the discussion.

3 END ON A STRONG NOTE

Probably due to memory processing and the serial position effect, the way you end a patient encounter can prove to be a critical practice builder. Many of us close a patient exam room visit with body language that is the opposite of how we opened the encounter. We play this tape in reverse.

Entrance: Open the door, walk toward and greet the patient, and extend a handshake.

Exit: Extend a handshake, say goodbye, and open the door to exit.

This seems logical and innocuous at first until you examine the exit more critically.

The last step of the exit sequence for the doctor is to open and then exit the door. Focusing on that goal (door), the examination swivel chair might start to face the door, or the doctor may have one hand on the doorknob as he says goodbye. A better strategy is to consciously save any acknowledgement of the door (easier said than done once you’re aware you’re doing this!) until you’ve verbally completed your encounter. OM

GARY GERBER, O.D., is the president of the Power Practice, a company specializing in making optometrists more profitable. Learn more at www.powerpractice.com, or call Dr. Gerber at (888) 356-4447..