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According to medical lore, a provider should sit at eye level with a patient during the initial examination to impart a sense of caring and to establish rapport. Also commonly taught, but not studied, is that patients perceive that a provider has spent more time with them if the caregiver sits rather than stands. In a prospective, controlled trial, 36 providers (attending physicians, residents, students, and physician’s assistants) were randomized to sit or stand during the initial evaluation of a convenience sample of 224 emergency department patients.
Actual time spent with patients averaged 8.6 minutes in both groups. Patients in the sitting-provider group overestimated the time by an average of 1.3 minutes, and those in the standing-prov…