Doctors should keep quiet and let patients explain their problems instead of interrupting them, Swiss scientists said. Most patients can explain what is wrong with them in less than two minutes and many may even be swifter, according to Dr. Wolf Langewitz of University Hospital in Basle. But research from the United States has shown that doctors usually start talking after about 22 seconds. "Doctors do not risk being swamped by their patients' complaints if they listen until a patient indicates that his or her list of complaints is complete," Langewitz said in a report in the British Medical Journal. When he and his colleagues used a hidden stopwatch to time patients until they were finished talking, the average time was 92 seconds, although elderly patients tended to take longer. "Even in a busy practice driven by time constraints and financial pressure, two minutes of listening should be possible and will be sufficient for nearly 80 percent of patients," Langewitz added.

    瑞士科學(xué)家說(shuō)，醫(yī)生應(yīng)該安靜地傾聽(tīng)患者講述病情，不要打斷他們。巴塞爾大學(xué)醫(yī)院的沃爾夫-蘭格維茨醫(yī)生認(rèn)為，大多數(shù)患者能在不到兩分鐘的時(shí)間內(nèi)說(shuō)明自己的病情，很多人還會(huì)更快。而美國(guó)的研究表明醫(yī)生通常在(患者開(kāi)始講述之后)大約22秒時(shí)就開(kāi)始說(shuō)話。蘭格維茨在發(fā)表于《英國(guó)醫(yī)學(xué)雜志》的報(bào)告中說(shuō)：“醫(yī)生應(yīng)該耐心傾聽(tīng)，直到患者表示他或她已經(jīng)講清楚所有病況為止，不用擔(dān)心患者的喋喋不休會(huì)令他們無(wú)所適從。”蘭格維茨和同事用秒表暗中測(cè)算患者講完病情所用的時(shí)間，發(fā)現(xiàn)他們平均要用92秒，盡管老年患者所花的時(shí)間通常要多一些。蘭格維茨補(bǔ)充道：“就算醫(yī)療業(yè)務(wù)因時(shí)間限制和財(cái)政壓力而格外繁忙，兩分鐘的傾聽(tīng)時(shí)間也應(yīng)該抽得出來(lái)，而這對(duì)將近80%的患者來(lái)說(shuō)已經(jīng)足夠了。”

    Remarks：對(duì)所有志在助人的“專業(yè)人士”來(lái)說(shuō)，這都是值得重視的一個(gè)建議。因?yàn)榻虠l僵死，而人是活的。人的問(wèn)題，人自己最清楚。