Article Text

Download PDFPDF
First name, surname or number: how to call a patient in the waiting room?
  1. Ulrike Sauer, MFSRH1,
  2. Saumini Mohan, MBBS, DFSRH2,
  3. Rudiger Pittrof, MRCOG, MFSRH3
  1. Subspecialty Trainee in Sexual and Reproductive Health, Enfield Community Services – RASH, London, UK; ulrike.sauer@enfield.nhs.uk
  2. Specialty Doctor in Sexual and Reproductive Health, Enfield Community Services – RASH, London, UK; Saumini.Mohan@enfield.nhs.uk
  3. Consultant in Genitourinary Medicine, Lambeth Primary Care Trust – Sexual Health, London, UK; Rudiger.Pittrof@lambethpct.nhs.uk

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

In sexual health services the first interaction between providers and service users typically occurs when patients are called from the waiting area; getting the greeting right is thus important for the quality of the consultation.1 Confidentiality is one of the key functions sexual and reproductive health patients expect from our service2 and therefore some may choose to register under a pseudonym, rather than risk having their identity divulged. Calling patients by their first name could be perceived as unearned familiarity,3 calling patients by their surname may disclose their identity and calling patients by a number may be impersonal. It is not clear for general1 4 and sexual health services how best to address our service users and most services will have experienced complaints from patients about the way they have been called from the waiting room. This triggered us to undertake a needs assessment of …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Competing interests None.