Asking patients to share a short biography establishes a better connection and improves care (BMJ, 5 June 2025)

Summary

Patient’s sharing details about their life with their medical team can help build better relationships, according to healthcare workers who have used the practice in Switzerland.

Patients are asked to provide a short biography which is shared with nurses, surgeons, anaesthetists and other people involved in their treatment. The medics also offer information about themselves and claim the project has helped them create better connections and improved interactions.

Content

Professor Pietro Majno-Hurst and his colleagues described their experience of the scheme in an article on the BMJ website. It said: “After more than one hundred requests so far, refusal to provide a biography has been rare (<5%). Some patients have remarked on a positive difference in their interactions with staff who had read the biography versus those who had not. It is important to set aside time in the care pathway to read the patient’s text.

“We are our biographies. Seeing ourselves and each other as unique human beings in the face of challenges should be an important part of clinical practice, but it is missing when the individuality of patients and health professionals is pushed aside.

“Perhaps it is not by chance that the idea of allowing patients and doctors to introduce themselves this way arose in a surgical ward, where technical competence and formality of the setting may feel detached and impersonal. Sharing biographies has shown us an accessible and effective tool for establishing better connection and care.”