A doctor’s working day requires the deployment of many and varied skills, some intellectual and some physical. Decision-making is the most taxing.
What patients encounter most frequently are the skills in communication.
Many doctors in practice today are excellent communicators. Some are not.
Doctors are only human. Doctors can be tired, irritable, depressed, worried, like anyone else. But we are always expected to be patient and understanding. That is the nature of the job.
Communication skills are now taught as a routine part of the medical curriculum. However, the older generation of the medical profession as well as some younger, less confident doctors, may not have benefited from this teaching.