The Coronavirus Killed the Handshake and the Hug. What Will Replace Them?

Dr. Mark Sklansky has always hated shaking hands. He can think of about a dozen better ways to greet patients than the icky exchange. “Hands are warm, they’re wet, and we know that they transmit disease very well,” says Sklansky, chief of pediatric cardiology at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. “They’re a phenomenal vector for disease.” He’s also tried to avoid this form of greeting because he knows that some patients don’t want to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons but feel compelled to when their doctor sticks out a hand. For a long time, though, being anti-handshake was fringe thinking. The handshake is such an ingrained part of the doctor-patient relationship that it happens 83% of the time, according to one 2007 analysis of more than 100 videotaped office visits. Sklansky was once nervous to take a stand against the popular gesture. “I honestly didn’t want to admit this to anyone for the longest time,” he says. But in a 2014 paper, Sklansky and his colleagues argued that shaking hands in health care settings can spread pathogens and viruses, and that health care workers can help keep patients safe by keeping their hands to themselves. The blowback was swift. Physicians huffed that getting rid of the handshake would erode the already fragile doctor-patient bond, that the greeting was irreplaceable, and that they could manage to shake hands and wash them without spreading disease, thank you...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 UnitedWeRise20Disaster Source Type: news