--- title: Health: Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients description: Teaching doctors a better bedside manner, making high schoolers 'defend' their diplomas, fixing patents, and more. canonical: https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-12T16:01:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:04.990Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 12, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 12, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Clinical empathy can be taught to doctors, and patients love it.**](http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/health/doctor-empathy/index.html) By Sandra G. Boodman in CNN **2\.** [**Should high schools make students ‘defend’ their diplomas like a Ph.D?**](http://hechingerreport.org/should-high-school-students-have-to-defend-their-diploma-like-a-ph-d/) By Brenda Iasevoli in the Hechinger Report **3\.** [**It’s time to fix patents.**](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21660522-ideas-fuel-economy-todays-patent-systems-are-rotten-way-rewarding-them-time-fix) By the Economist **4\.** [**Can lessons from Israel help California solve its drought problem?**](http://forward.com/news/national/318721/can-israel-help-californias-desert-bloom/) By Madison Margolin in the Forward **5\.** [**To really help the poor, create technology worth paying for.**](https://hbr.org/2015/08/to-really-help-the-global-poor-create-technology-theyll-pay-for) By Alex Deng in Harvard Business Review  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/"},"headline":"How Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients","datePublished":"2015-08-12T16:01:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:04.990Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/","keywords":["Innovation","High School","poverty","patents","Doctor","California drought"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3993831/doctors-better-bedside-manner/","name":"How Teaching Doctors Better Bedside Manner Will Benefit Patients"}}]}] ```