Experts from academia and medical fraternity on Thursday opined that to improve communication between doctors and patients, doctors will have to be more empathetic towards patients.

The Centre for Management of Healthcare Services at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad hosted a discussion on ‘Doctor-Patient Communication: Issues and Challenges’ where representatives from the medical community, hospital managers from both private and public sector hospitals, general public and academic experts shared their views.

Highlighting patients perspectives, Dr Jyoti Raut from Gujarat State Network of People Living with HIV said, “Most of the time, doctors do not give sufficient time to their patients. They do not even explain all medicines. Hence, patients feel left out. Patients have also been facing discrimination in private and public hospitals.” 

Empathy is missing in this field, said Dr Garga Chatterjee, an academician from ISI Kolkata.