At Health First, Bedside Manner Isn’t Just a Nicety — It’s a Vital Part of Healing From the OR to Final Goodbye
By Space Coast Daily // June 26, 2025
A cap, a touch, a tear: How small gestures help patients heal
WATCH – Linda’s Story, Forever Grateful for a Second Chance: Dr. Paul Keller – and his bedside manner – wiped Linda Durbin’s worries away.
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Hippocrates, the “father of medicine,” taught others that utilizing kindness, respect, and patience was “fundamental” to patient healing.
BREVARD COUNTY • ROCKLEDGE, FLORIDA — As Linda Durbin was wheeled back to the operating room at Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center, her spinal surgeon, Dr. Paul Keller, was right next to her.
“He patted me on the hand and said, ‘I got you. We’ll be fine,’ ” Durbin recalled. “And I said, ‘I know you do.’ ”
The 68-year-old Vero Beach resident had endured years of debilitating back pain – and her spirit was suffering, too, when she went to Keller.
“There was no quality of life at that point whatsoever,” Durbin said. “I had given up, and he was my last chance.”
Pretty quickly, Keller – and his bedside manner – wiped Durbin’s worries away. Keller casually sat down on the stool in the exam room, showing Durbin her X-rays, MRI – everything, she said.
“It’s important for patients to be heard,” Keller said. “It’s important for us to listen – and that takes time. I always want patients to feel like they’re the only person we’re seeing today.”
Keller has the right idea — and research backs it up: a health care provider’s bedside manner plays a significant role in patient care.
That combination of clinical skill and genuine care was critical to Durbin’s confidence about the intricate spinal surgery. Since the procedure, Durbin has slowly gotten back to living life, how she wants to.
“Surgeons usually don’t have time to hear your stuff,” Durbin said. “They just want to fix you or tell you what they need to do. And I was so afraid he was going to tell me there was nothing he could do. But he didn’t.”
Turns out, how a provider interacts with patients does matter – from their tone, sense of empathy, and the way they present themselves and communicate with the patient.
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Empathy Matters in Patient Healing
In a world increasingly shifting towards AI, bedside manner remains an irreplaceable skill. The human connection has been shown to impact patient recovery.
So what exactly is “bedside manner?” A blog post from Dec. 29, 2024, by the American University of Antigua College of Medicine calls it “the way providers connect with patients — emphasizing patience, eye contact, active listening, respect, and consideration. These skills include truly hearing patients out and addressing their concerns, helping them feel valued, respected and understood.”
The idea is something that stretches back to fourth-century Greek practices, with the blog post noting that Hippocrates, the “father of medicine” physician, taught others that utilizing kindness, respect, and patience was “fundamental” to patient healing.
Benefits Noted by the College Include:
■ Patient comfort: Attentive providers help patients relax.
■ Trust: Truly listening to patient concerns builds it.
■ Better outcomes: When patients feel supported and heard, they’re more likely to follow doctors’ orders
■ Emotional needs: No one wants to be in a hospital bed. Providers who listen to patient concerns can help mend not only their body but mind.
Keller believes deeply in listening to his patients. He explained Durbin’s condition to her and presented her with options – and warned her that while fixable, she needed to prepare for a long road ahead.
It’s something instilled in Keller since he was a child.
“My parents didn’t go to college,” Keller reflected. “My grandparents didn’t go to high school…So being able to do this is an honor for me, and I think that’s what keeps me grounded.”
“The most important thing is to figure out, from each patient, what their real problem is – not what the X-ray shows, the MRI shows,” Keller explained. “The way we inform and empower patients is to give them knowledge – and give them options.”
Bedside Manner, Across the Board
Bedside manner isn’t limited to doctors – nurses, who spend the most time with patients, play a vital role in shaping the hospital experience.
“Based on the Gallup polls telling us for 23 years in a row that nurses are the most trusted professionals, bedside manner plays a huge part of that trusting relationship,” said Cheyana Fischer, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive.
At Health First, the I-CARE values — integrity, compassion, accountability, respect and excellence — guide how bedside manner is delivered by everyone from RNs to techs to therapists. Nurses even undergo specialty-specific training, especially for fields like oncology where emotionally intense conversations are common.
“It talks about having difficult conversations,” Fischer said. “So, we try to tailor what they need to their specialty.”
They certainly do it incredibly well in the eyes of Linda Pyott.
Pyott was so touched by the care her late husband, Greg, received last October at Health First’s Viera Hospital, she sent a letter commending the care provided by one particular nurse.
Pyott nominated Shannon Riley for a DAISY award, a hospital program honoring excellence in nursing. In the heartfelt letter, Pyott wrote of Greg’s insistence he not be intubated, instead being made comfortable during his final hours.
Riley, Pyott said, was not just an excellent nurse, but one who was acutely aware of what her patient and his loved ones were going through – and seemingly small details that warmed the widow’s heart.
“Shannon was intuitively sensitive to both his needs and mine,” she wrote.
As Greg had found the hospital lights too bright, Pyott had brought a ballcap to shield his eyes during his hospital stay. At some point, his hat was removed and set aside.
“Sometime during the 12 hours of his passing, on one of her brief forays into the room, Shannon apparently noticed it and, no doubt thinking it was an integral part of his identity, quietly picked it up, approached him, put it gently on his head and slid out of the room,” Pyott’s nomination read.
“That single gesture touched me so deeply that I am weeping now again, thinking of it,” Pyott wrote. “It spoke volumes to me of her respect for him as a person, and his preferences, and her desire to preserve his dignity for as long as he was drawing a breath.”
Pyott said she’d give anything to have Greg back. But it was the compassionate care that got her through the moments of losing her husband.
“Nurses are often called angels of mercy,” she wrote. “After watching Shannon Riley in action over several days, I now understand why.”
Riley was incredibly touched by the letter.
“When I receive feedback like this, it means the world to me,” Riley, 32, said. “I will carry Lyn’s words with me for the rest of my life….Knowing she felt supported and comforted during this time makes it all worth it. It’s a powerful reminder that the care we provide as nurses truly matters.”
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Caring is a Calling
For Dr. Levent Mutlu, a Health First Medical Group gynecologic oncologist, the human connection is what led him to switch careers — from the mechanics of physics to the complexity of cancer care.
“These patients were facing some of the hardest moments of their lives, and yet they would open up, sharing their experiences, their fears, their hopes,” Mutlu said. “It made me realize what really mattered — what I wanted out of my career.”
“You can be the most technically skilled doctor in the world,” Mutlu explained, “but if you don’t connect with your patients, if you don’t listen to them, you’re missing something huge.”
It is huge. Just ask Durbin, Dr. Keller’s patient. Months after surgery, her life has been completely transformed.
“When I say he saved my life, I mean everything,” Durbin, 68, said. “He was gentle, but to the point. He wanted to make sure that he heard me, which is a big deal. A lot of doctors don’t ‘hear’ you, but he heard me. He saw me cry. He saw me have the frustration and then, when he said that he could fix it…just the idea of having that big surgery – he understood.”
Now, Durbin’s back to doing what she loves – including selling her homemade dog treats at weekend farmer’s markets in downtown Melbourne.
“This is great,” Durbin said. “I’m doing things to keep myself busy and my hobbies and be able to move and not be embarrassed to go out in public.
“I’m not an old lady,” she added. “I’m alive.”
