How often do you find yourself talking to family members, friends, business partners, and co-workers only to catch that faraway look in their eyes? They're hearing, but not listening. Their minds are busy forming grocery lists, replaying a TV show, or stewing over harsh words they had with their spouses.

But what if that person is your doctor?

Dr. Michael Krasner is a practicing primary-care physician and associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester. He has done research showing that training physicians in mindfulness meditation is beneficial to doctors and patients alike.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that is based on learning how to be aware of thoughts and actions in the moment that they occur - rather than churning about the past or the future - without judgment or self-critique. Practitioners train their minds to "be present."

Krasner's research involved 70 Rochester-area physicians who were examined for burnout. The physicians underwent eight weeks of intensive meditation training, and 10 months of follow up. The physicians showed a significant decrease in mood disturbances, and their empathy and communication dramatically improved.

Krasner has been teaching mindfulness meditation to medical students and health-care professionals for years. Being present, he says, is critical to good patient care.

"There is something transmitted in being present that is very powerful," he says.

Sixty percent of practicing primary-care physicians report symptoms of burnout, says a September 2009 article in the Journal of American Medicine. Substance abuse, marital problems, and suicidal tendencies are some of the symptoms of burnout, which has been linked to poor patient care, and increased medical errors and lawsuits.

Unlike specialists, primary-care physicians usually have long relationships with their patients, many of whom are suffering from chronic pain.

"The sense of isolation for primary-care physicians is huge," Krasner says.

The stress causes many physicians to stop listening to their patients, to lose empathy, and worse, to quickly jump to incorrect conclusions, Krasner says.