Your right hand is a fist in your pocket, knuckles white against the denim. The doctor is talking, and the words are clean, sterile, and utterly incomprehensible. They float in the air like dust motes in the shaft of light from the window-protocol, titration, contraindication, serum levels. You’re nodding, of course. You’re making eye contact. You are performing the role of the ‘Good Patient,’ the ‘Concerned Son,’ the responsible adult who understands. But inside your head, it’s just the sound of a dial tone.
Recalibrating Our Internal Rules
I’ll confess, I used to be that etiquette coach. I have simmered with righteous indignation at the sight of a blue-lit face in a dark restaurant. I’ve mentally condemned people scrolling through their feeds while in a checkout line, as if their momentary disengagement was a personal affront. We’ve been conditioned to see the phone as the enemy of presence, the great atomizing force of modern life.
In that room, your brain is already compromised by anxiety and information overload. In that room, the phone isn’t a distraction; it’s a cognitive prosthetic.
The Fiction of Multitasking
I once had a driving instructor, a man named Ahmed V. with impeccably calm hands that never seemed to grip the wheel. He was a quiet man, but when he spoke, it was with unnerving precision. During one lesson, I was struggling with scanning-mirrors, speedometer, road, repeat. I felt clumsy, my attention lurching from one point to another.
That’s what’s happening when the doctor speaks. You can’t listen, comprehend, formulate questions, and perfectly memorize unfamiliar terms all at the same time. It’s impossible. You are switching tasks, and with every switch, you’re dropping information.
of information
of what they do
Studies suggest patients forget up to 84% of the information given to them by doctors, and that what they do remember, nearly 44% of it is incorrect. By refusing to use the most powerful capture device ever invented, we are choosing to walk out of that office with a dangerously incomplete and corrupted dataset.
Evolving Technology, Stagnant Etiquette
We are clinging to a social norm from a bygone era, a rule that made sense when a phone was just for making calls. Today, it’s a recorder, a camera, a notepad, a library. Insisting that using it for its utility functions is rude is like insisting that writing on a notepad with a quill pen is the only respectful way to take notes. The technology has evolved, but the etiquette has not. This lag is not just a quaint inconvenience; it’s a genuine threat to our health and the health of the people we care for.
A Personal Reckoning
My own moment of reckoning came two years ago. My father, a man who saw instructions as mere suggestions, was discharged from the hospital with 14 different prescriptions. The pharmacist went over them. The doctor went over them. I sat there, nodding, performing my role as the ‘Good Son.’ I didn’t pull out my phone. I didn’t record the sequence or the warnings. I walked out with a plastic bag full of bottles and a head full of fog.
That night, I realized the problem wasn’t just my memory. It was my entire system. Or rather, the lack of one. The burden of caregiving is a firehose of information-appointments, medication schedules, dietary restrictions, symptoms to monitor. Relying on a stressed-out human brain to manage that is an act of profound irresponsibility. It demands a different approach, one that acknowledges human frailty. It requires a central command, a digital fortress to organize the chaos. True caregiver support isn’t just a pat on the back; it’s providing the infrastructure to prevent these kinds of failures before they happen.
Advocating for the Cognitive Prosthetic
I’ve changed my mind. I am now a staunch, almost militant, advocate for using your phone in the exam room. I’ll preface it, of course. A simple, “Do you mind if I record this so I can review it later? I want to make sure I get everything right,” is all it takes. I have never once had a doctor say no. Most seem relieved. They know the statistics. They know how much information gets lost in the ether between their mouth and your brain.
Let the phone be the tool it was designed to be.
The Right Place, The Right Tool