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Supporting effective doctor–patient communication: doctors’ name badges

Benjamin D Bravery, Jovana Stojkov and Jeremy Brown
Med J Aust 2020; 213 (11): . || doi: 10.5694/mja2.50792
Published online: 5 October 2020

Name badges are a simple additional method of communicating doctors’ names to patients and their families, but uptake remains poor

Most new relationships begin with an exchange of names and most existing relationships are reinforced using names. Except in health care. Despite campaigns such as #hellomynameis (https://www.hello​mynam​eis.org.uk/), clinicians’ names remain absent from many health care experiences and environments. Patients meet many people during an illness journey, particularly when that takes place in a public hospital. There are nurses rotating through different shifts, the specialist under whom the patient is admitted, a registrar, resident or intern, plus maybe a medical student or two. There are also teams of allied health providers.


  • 1 Blacktown and Mount Druitt Hospital, Sydney, NSW
  • 2 Nepean Hospital, Sydney, NSW


Correspondence: benbravery@yahoo.com.au

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

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