“We Are Just Sort of Overwhelmed”: The US Medical System, Medical Residency, and Doctor-Patient Interactions.

This article adds to the growing area of resident socialization research by exploring a seldom-studied aspect of American medical resident socialization: residentsÂ’ perceptions of communication between doctors and patients. Medical residents in the US are valuable to study because they are learning to become physicians; they are learning how to communicate with patients; they are also observing countless interactions between attending physicians and patients. Twenty-eight residents participated in semi-structured interviews ranging from 30 minutes to 90 minutes in length. Data was analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results are presented in five main areas this article. These areas are residentsÂ’ views of the importance of communication, resident descriptions of factors contributing to poor interactions between physicians and patients, and resident descriptions of their ideal patients and ideal physician-patient interactions. A review of study limitations and future research avenues are also presented. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]