185

ORIGINAL�ARTICLE

ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore the perceptions of local communities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad about the 
characteristics of a good physician and their expectations regarding attributes of a good physician.
Study Design: Exploratory sequential a mixed method research. 
Place and Duration of Study: Different localities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from September 2017 to 
February 2018.
Materials and Methods: Data for this research was collected using three focus group discussions followed by a 
cross-sectional survey.  For quantitative data, a pre-tested structured questionnaire was administered to 804 
respondents between the age group of 25-65 years, selected through non-probability convenience sampling 
technique. All the data was gathered after taking informed consent and confidentiality was ensured. A 
qualitative content analysis was carried out using inductive approach and the quantitative data was analyzed 
using SPSS version 22.
Results: Out of the 804 study participants, 57% were females and 43% were males with a mean age of 35.1 
+11.8 years. Amongst highlighted qualities, 77.1%, ranked honest and trustworthy as a first priority, 73.4%, 
marked second priority to being a good communicator, third and fourth priorities were kind and respectful 
(82.5%) and good care provider (69.4%). There was no difference in prioritizing the characteristics among both 
genders and this finding was statistically significant (p=0.004), however education had a very significant role in 
prioritizing these characteristics (p=0.000) i.e., for uneducated participants priority was respect while for 
educated community honesty appeared as a priority. 
Conclusion: The current study concluded that honesty, trust, politeness, respect and care are the main 
characteristics of a good doctor desired by the community. These non-cognitive attributes can be used as the 
basis for curriculum development in medical education. The evaluation of such instructional programs should 
be the focus of future research.

Key Words: Case- Attributes, Characteristics, Community, Good physician, Perceptions.

the characteristics of a good doctor has been shifted 
over to the patients with highlighting the shared 
decision-making concept between doctor and the 

2 
patient. Therefore now it is the patient who 
c h a ra c te r i ze s  t h e  b a s i s  o f  p a t i e n t - d o c t o r  

3
relationship, rather than doctors themselves.  Most 
of the patients are well aware of the qualities that 

4 
they desire their doctors to possess. The patients 
and their relatives associate goodness with integrity, 
safety, honesty, kindness, care and competency. All 
of these characteristics are important since they are 
aware of that the decisions of their doctors can affect 
the outcome of their illness, even the declaration of 
life and death, or between having the benefit of 

5 
speedy recovery and suffering serious disability.
A good doctor is the combination of all the traits, 
being integrated, composed, understanding and 
caring. Nevertheless also must be knowledgeable, 
skilled, and prepared enough to deliver best for 

Introduction 
Patient centered care has become the mainstay of 
patient-doctor relationship that caters for all the 
aspects of patient care including physical, 

1 
psychological, emotional, and social issues. Hence, 
t h e  q u a l i t y  o f  p at i e nt - d o c to r  re l at i o n s h i p  
determines the accomplishment of treatment and 

1 
outcome as a whole. The responsibility to appreciate 

Perceptions of Community about the Characteristics of a Good Physician: 
A Mixed Method Research

1 2 3 4 5 6
Farah Rashid , Usman Zafar , Khadija Muhammad , Iffat Atif , Maham Mumtaz , Aleena Saeed

Correspondence:
Dr. Usman Zafar
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine
Islamabad Medical and Dental College, Islamabad
E-mail: usman.zafar@imdcollege.edu.pk

1 2
Department of Community Medicine/Medicine

Islamabad Medical and Dental College, Islamabad
3,5,6 4

Department of Ophthalmology/ Community Medicine
Yusra Medical and Dental College, Islamabad

Funding Source: NIL; Conflict of Interest: NIL
Received: July 15, 2021; Revised: September 03, 2021
Accepted: September 06, 2021

Characteristics of a Good DoctorJIIMC 2021 Vol. 16, No.3



6
saving lives of his patients.  Good physicians must 
put an effort to improve the quality of patients' lives 
by continuous and enduring hard work with a 
complete range of resources that will contribute to 

7
their patients' healing.
There has been a lot of effort done to redefine the 
relationship between the patients and their 

8
physicians. The medical professionalism has been 
defined to be based on a set of values, attributes and 
relationships that can serve as a yardstick by which 
patients can measure their expectations and make 
the decisions regarding their treatment by shared 

9 
understanding. The investigations of patient-doctor 
relationship were focused on different aspects of 
patient interaction including communication and 

6-9
honesty between doctors  There is evidence that 
suggests the importance of the participation of 
patients in the decision making throughout their 

10
treatment process. For doctors to effectively take 
on these challenges and demands of their 
professional lives, they must have a certain degree of 

11
character strength.
This research has been carried out to explore the 
perceptions of community about the characteristics 
of a good physician. It highlights a very crucial issue 
of how these strengths could be endorsed in 
practice. The research is also in accordance with the 
PMDC seven-star competencies for a good doctor. 
The main objective of this research is to explore the 
perception of the local community about the 
qualities they want to observe in their doctors.

Materials and Methods
The research approach used in current study was 
Exploratory Sequential, a mixed method research. 
The survey was conducted in twin cities of 
Rawalpindi and Islamabad from September 2017 to 
February 2018. Sample size was calculated by WHO 
sample size calculator, keeping confidence interval at 
95%, and knowledge of characteristics of a good 
physician to be 50%, sample size turned out 385. 
However, total of 804 participants belonging to 
different socioeconomic strata and educational 
status were selected through non-probability 
convenience sampling technique from different 
localities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Ethical 
approval was taken from ethical review committee of 
Yusra Medical and Dental College. Informed consent 
was taken from the respondents explaining them the 

purpose of this study and confidentiality of data was 
ensured.
The qualitative data was collected through Focus 
Group Discussions (FGDs) followed by a structured 
questionnaire for quantitative data. Initially three 
FGDs were conducted. These FGDs were held in local 
community centers. Participants were invited 
without any monetary incentive. Informed consent 
was taken by the research team with surety of data 
confidentiality. There were 10-12 participants in 
each FGD, for male and female participants separate 
FGDs were held. Majority of the participants were 
married, minimally educated and were in the age 
group of 25-45 years. One separate FGD was held for 
youngsters between the age group of 18-24, all 
students and unmarried. All FGDs were audio-taped 
with the permission of each group. Field notes were 
also taken during the sessions. Transcripts were 
developed in English. Information gathered through 
notes was cross-checked before and during the data 
processing by the research team members for 
quality assurance and validation. A qualitative 
content analysis was carried out using inductive 
approach in which identified themes emerge from a 
group of categories with common meanings, 
followed by coding. Themes and sub-themes were 
identified through consensus of the research team.
F o r  c r o s s - s e c t i o n a l  s u r v e y,  a  s t r u c t u r e d  
questionnaire was developed and pilot testing was 
done. The main themes that emerged in FGDs were 
used to design the questionnaire. The rationale for 
this approach lies in first exploring a topic before 
deciding what variables (qualities of a good 
physician) need to be measured and the community 
was asked to rank those (themes) qualities according 
to their priorities. Cronbach's alpha was 0.87. The 
response rate was 95%. Data on demographics, 
source of income, housing, literacy status was 
collected from each participant. Along with these, 
questions related to community's preferred choices 
for the characteristics of a good physician were 
asked. SPSS version 22 was used to analyze the data. 
Frequency distributions were calculated. For 
inferential statistics, Chi square test was performed, 
with a p-Value of less than 0.05 being significant.

Results
For qualitative data main themes identified through 
various focus group discussions about the 

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Characteristics of a Good Doctor



characteristics of a good physician were honest, 
trustworthy, good communicator, respectful and 
good care provider.
Table I shows details of themes and sub-themes

(n=590) respect and being kind stood third, 
furthermore 81.2% (n=653) of participants 
expressed good care-provider as fourth quality 
necessary for a good physician. The details of these 
findings are depicted in Figure I.Table I: Themes and Sub-Themes Emerged from FGDs 

about Characteristics of A Good Physician

In a cross-sectional survey, out of 804 participants, 
57% (462) were females and 43% (342) were males 
with a mean age of 35.1 +11.8 years, 67% (541) of the 
individuals belonged to lower and middle 
socioeconomic status and 33% (263) were from high 
social class.
The first and foremost characteristic of a good 
physician reported by 80% (n=644) participants was 
honesty and trust, 77% (n=620) ranked good 
communication skills as second quality. With 73.4% 

Fig 1: Characterictics of a good physiscian Priority wise

On application of chi-square, no difference in 
prioritizing the characteristics among both genders 
were found and this finding was statistically 
significant (p=0.004), however education had very 
significant role in prioritizing these characteristics 
(p=0.001) i.e., for uneducated participants first 
priority was respect while for educated community 
honesty appeared as first priority(Table II).

Table II: Comparison of Characteristics of A Good 
Physician (First Priority) Various Demographic Variables

* 
Significant p-value

Discussion
Patient's personal experiences and experiences of 
family and friends structure the perspectives about 

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2 
what to look for in a physician, opinion regarding the 
good doctor is considerably different from other 

3, 4
professionals. A good doctor can be defined as good 
only when he or she has certain combinations of 

5
attributes. Even though it is difficult to find 
numerous qualities in a single person, yet the 

6
medical profession demands for such combinations.  
The current research is novel in a sense that it 
focused on patients' perspective of qualities in a 
good physician and it holds a very significant place 
because limited work has been done in Pakistan. The 
doctors do not know exactly what their patients 
expect from them, they only try and do what they 

7
think is the best. According to the findings of this 
study, with 80% vote honesty and trust turned out to 
be the most wanted quality the public wants in a 

8,9 
doctor and endorsed by various other studies.
Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives 
and health,' according to the GMC's Good Medical 
Practice – the main ethical advice document for 
doctors operating in the UK. It goes on to say that 
doctors “Should be honest and open and act with 
integrity' and 'Never abuse your patients' trust in you 

10
or the public's trust in the profession” 
Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and 
politeness. 73.4% of the local community wants their 
doctor to be respectful and kind.  When a patient is in 
pain, and the first thing a doctor can do to ease his 
pain is to talk to him politely. Subsequently he feels at 
ease to share his problem in detail without any 

1 1 , 1 2  
hesitation. Patients should have a good 
understanding of their disease so that if they know 
the severity of the condition they would look after 
themselves with better care and visit the doctor 

12
again as scheduled to improve their health. Our 
findings replicate the findings of research conducted 
in University of Birmingham. The research concluded 
that the top-quality patients wanted in a doctor were 
honesty and on third number highest voted quality 

13
was Politeness.
Another quality as highlighted by 77% of the 
respondents was good communication skills. 
Patients are looking for doctors that are good 
communicators and have up-to-date clinical 

14
knowledge and skills.  They also expect practitioners 
to be concerned and sympathetic, to include them in 
the decision-making process, including an 
explanation of their symptoms, treatment, or 

investigation, to devote appropriate time and 
energy, and offer them guidance on health 

15
promotion and self-care.
Out of total 81% of the participants voted good care 

th
provider as a 4  priority with involvement of the 
patient in their treatment. The conventional model 
of decision-making claimed that only the doctor was 
adequately educated and experienced to decide 
what should be done, and that patient engagement 
should be limited to granting or refusing treatment 
consent. However, this paternalistic approach 

16
appears to be outmoded presently Many patients .
now want to be informed about their disease and 
treatment alternatives, as well as to be actively 

17,18
involved in the decision-making process.  There is 
mounting evidence that people who actively 
participate in treatment decisions and healthcare 

18
management have better health outcomes. 
What's particularly intriguing about this study is that 
many of the characteristics, attributes, or virtues 
discovered were non-cognitive rather than cognitive 
skills, which are often overlooked in medical 

18,19
education programs.  If a number of non-cognitive 
activities are actually vital for a successful doctor, as 
this study implies, they should be given more 

19
attention in medical education. However, there are 
fundamental issues regarding whether these virtues 
can be taught, and even if they can be, whether they 
can survive in today's culture, where self-interest, 

19,20
not altruism, is the guiding principle.
It's been debated whether virtue can be taught. 
However, Aristotle stated that “we learn by doing, 
and that the greatest way to do so is to emulate a 

20 
virtuous person”. To meet the community's 
ambitions, we need virtuous physicians as teachers 
in medicine. These values and attitudes must be 
inculcated into the personalities of future 

21
physicians.

Conclusion
The current study concluded that honesty, 
politeness, respect and good care, are the main 
character strengths and attributes that the patients 
want to see in their physician. It is important to 
address that how these attributes could be 
inculcated in medical curriculum and endorsed in 
practice. The evaluation of such instructional 
programs should be the focus of future research.

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