Most patients take two minutes or less to tell their story, if the doctor lets them speak without interruption.

Doctors are busy people and observation shows they take the lead early in a consultation, as if they fear the patient might waste time if they let them carry on talking. What would happen if the doctor didn't interrupt?

Researchers in Basel, Switzerland, had a group of patients in an outpatient clinic talk freely. The doctor was to time them on a hidden stopwatch and speak only when the patient said 'What do you think, doctor?'. The average talk time was 92 seconds, with 78 per cent of patients finished within two minutes. Older patients tended to talk for longer.

The doctors believed that the patients had not just been rambling on - they imparted important information about their condition during the two minutes or less. And these were patients with complex complaints. In simpler cases, the talk time could be shorter still. Even the hardest pressed doctor can surely allocate two minutes of listening to each individual patient?

Source

British Medical Journal 28th September 2002