Our patients should not be our blind spots. Even with the most thorough routines, I may not catch important clues—be it some subtle discomfort or altered affect—without keen observation, clues that may drastically change a patient's story and care.

Alan Z. Yang, a second-year medical student at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, discusses the importance of observing and truly seeing a patient during a visit rather than focusing solely on standard interview questions and physical exam.

The essay read in this episode was published in the Teaching and Learning Moments column in the May 2022 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.