that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> one of things doctors do as we interrupt patients very quickly. something like eight to ten seconds you think i'm having his pain, when did it start? what makes it worse? we just can't help ourselves. so i wondered how long would it patient speak if he didn't say anything, just let them go? i pulled my colleagues, five minutes, ten minutes, 20 minutes, for never. i would never do with my patients. i found a swiss study where the doctor said what can help you with today?

the patient just spoke and the doctor didn't say word other than not. the average monologue for the patient, 92 seconds. probably the delusion, the tsunami that we fear. i thought okay, i'm going to try this in the clinic. the very next day i get it. for every patient, i turned down my stopwatch and i didn't say a word. took notes as he spoke and i just nodded. so the first patient was about 30 seconds. they were pretty healthy, at the next patient had a little bit of back pain, a minute, a man and a half. not too bad. but then came the kicker. a teacher in her native argentina gumshoe saddled with a vast array of pains, compounded by anxiety, depression and irritable bowel syndrome. plus a demanding mother to care for. exactly the type of patient who

had a list of complaints. new york city's pretensions of culture, could never measure up to the sophistication of when it's a race. but if i let her talk uninterrupted, it would unfurl. i hear a dizzying list of symptoms from every organ, a run data from mothers medical ills plus metropolitan operas. i wouldn't be able to provide any easy solutions for symptoms, and i'll be forced to explain the decision of her mothers doctors as well as the director of the met. both of us would be in a sour mood by the end and whol hopingd turn out to be a sprawling onerous mess which she would excoriate on philosophical grounds. i promised myself i would let every single patient talk today. i eliminate the so-called

difficult patients and my data, however, in form would be flawed. i voted myself for battle and ask her how can i help you today? and reluctantly clicked on the stopwatch. every single thing hurt she said, from my toasted my head. there were shooting pains in her gums. her scalp was painfully sensitive. pain was radiating down her spine become other had insomnia and was up at all hours of night complaining. each time she paused i said anything else? and there always was. i'm only 45, but i feel like i'm 85. every step hurts. my head feels like it's fallen to five times its size it's like i'm walking to molasses. i scribbled a few notes as she talked but maintain eye contact with through the entire time. let's get everything on the table i said, every last symptom and then we will figure out where to go from there. i let her keep talking until she fully, truly, absolutely had

come to the end of all she had to say. and silence i clicked off the stopwatch. i estimated ten minutes had transpired but in fact, it was four minutes and seven seconds. and the met had come out unscathed. i suppress the urge to jump up and say. [laughing] i said is that everything? she nodded. when viewed on the page it actually does seem overwhelming. it was long but it was finite. she had already had the million-dollar workout which was all negative. explain ship something going on. medicine is court explaining pain syndrome i said. that doesn't mean we can't start treating the symptoms. we went down the list together trying to identify which paints might be helpful with ice packs in which my decree with local heat and massage, which might be best treated with physical therapy, which my response to pain medications. we talked about how antidepressants could be helpful

and that seeing a therapist could help her stress. we discussed the critical world exercise in treating chronic pain and then we go to pay plan. at the end of the visit she didn't go over time by too much. she said something that i'd read about but never actually heard a patient say. just talking about all this, she said, had made me feel better. i wanted to jump up and sing. i was in a process of realizing something is. just talking aloud made me feel better. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> historian and activist rebecca solnit offers her thoughts on changes occurring within the feminist movement. this program contains language that some may find offensive.