Emotional Fit Between Patient and Doctor

Guest: Tamara Sims, postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Stanford and lead author of the study on emotions and shaping patient health behavior Last time you visited the doctor, did he or she tell you to do something you weren’t all that thrilled to hear? So much of the doctor-patient relationship is based on advice –eat healthier, exercise daily, stop smoking, get more sleep.  And we’re good at only hearing what we want to hear, aren’t we? Some new work being done by the Culture and Emotion Lab at Stanford University points to one way of making patients more receptive to their doctors’ advice. It has to do with the emotional fit between doctor and patient.