PapersWomen's attitudes to the sex of medical students in a gynaecology clinic: cross sectional surveyCommentary: Patients as partners in medical education

Doctors do not risk being swamped by their patients' complaints if they listen until a patient indicates that his or her list of complaints is complete.Even in a busy practice driven by time constraints and financial pressure, two minutes of listening should be possible and will be sufficient for nearly 80% of patients.We gathered data in a tertiary referral centre that is characterised by a selection of difficult patients with complex histories.4 Patients in less selected groups might need even less time to complete their initial statement.We thank our colleagues at the outpatient clinic for providing the data and the administrative staff for collecting patient questionnaires.Contributors: WL participated in the design and conducted most of the analyses.AKe contributed to data collection and analyses, MD was the project manager.AKi was involved in design and analysis.SR (then head of the outpatient clinic) organised data collection and coordination with standard routines in the clinic; BW provided training in patient centred communication.