Instead of Handshake Hazard: Namaste, Salaam Gestures or Bumping Elbows?

Of course, we all teach our medical students from year 1 that the handshake with the patient is a  classic professional act to develop and preserve the doctor-patient relationship. The basis for teaching our students is that an initial handshake is, as I wrote in the thread "A Doctor's Touch" in July 2008, "the handshake, provides the first connection with the patient. It can be represented as the marking of a beginning doctor-patient relationship which is hopefully to continue to the benefit of the patient. The quality of the handshake tells each party, at the onset, something about the other." But these days with greater spread of infection attributed by studies in part related to hand to hand contact, despite emphasis to attend to hand washing, there is an argument in favor that the professional handshake with the patient is now anachronistic and should be  eliminated.  But what, less infectious but yet courteous behavior is there  to replace the handshake?A recent article on this subject in a May 15 2014 issue of the online Journal of the American Medical Association discusses the hand shake which " has evolved over centuries into its currently profound cultural role. Artifacts from ancient Greece suggest that the handshake began as a general gesture of peace, revealing one’s open palm as a symbol of honesty and trust. The custom and technique of this open-palm gesture subsequently evolved into the modern form of the handshake, now representing ...
Source: Bioethics Discussion Blog - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs