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When Kimberly Fisher, MD, was a junior doctor, she got fired up when patients showed hesitancy about vaccines. She responded by providing numbers, data, and facts that proved vaccines were safe and effective in preventing life-threatening diseases. But she soon realized that regurgitating scientific evidence wasn't a winning strategy.

"I've made the mistake of launching into a let me tell you all the things that I know that you don't know kind of lecture," Fisher, now an associate professor of medicine at UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, a pulmonary physician, and a researcher interested in patient-provider communication, told Medscape Medical News. "Through experience and research, I have learned that when you do that, they stop listening."

She said when patients give reasons for not getting vaccinated that are factually wrong and rooted in misinformation, the most common reaction is to correct that information and not let it stand. "That is important; it just can't be the first thing you do," she said. Head over to Medscape to read the full story.