On the lighter side: Medicine or etiquette? Rethinking a lecturer's teaching assignment.

PURPOSE: To investigate the extent to which medical students demonstrate politeness. With respect to patient-physician interactions, politeness appears to be a factor in therapeutic success, perhaps because it might induce greater patient compliance.

METHOD: We assessed 354 third-semester medical students on one type of politeness, that is the percentage of students who greeted the teacher upon entering the lecture room.

RESULTS: Overall, 47% of the students initiated a greeting and this percentage did not change when the lecturers wore white coats. Females were less likely to initiate a greeting (35%) than males (55%).

CONCLUSION: The results lead us to question whether university lecturers should strictly stick to their content of the curriculum or should they also teach their students about etiquette related to good clinician-patient relationships?