Communicating With Medical Patients

Designed to synthesize a growing international and interdisciplinary body of experience, this volume provides a mandate and a charge to medicine to fundamentally transform the traditional clinical method and the social relations it fosters between doctor and patient and between student and teacher. The contributors challenge the medical establishment to change their clinical method from that of a disease-centred to a patient-centred one. Four sections deal with issues related to the doctor's own transformation, the medical interview, teaching and learning, and validation.

This 2006 volume provides a comprehensive discussion of communication between doctors and patients in primary care consultations. It brings together a team of leading contributors from the fields of linguistics, sociology and medicine to describe each phase of the primary care consultation, identifying the distinctive tasks, goals and activities that make up each phase of primary care as social interaction. Using conversation analysis techniques, the authors analyze the sequential unfolding of a visit, and describe the dilemmas and conflicts faced by physicians and patients as they work through each of these activities. The result is a view of the medical encounter that takes the perspective of both physicians and patients in a way that is both rigorous and humane. Clear and comprehensive, this book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociolinguistics, communication studies, sociology, and medicine.

This text and its companion, "Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Medicine," provide a comprehensive approach to improving communication in medicine. Exploring in detail the specific skills of doctor-patient communication, the book provides evidence of the improvements that these skills can make in health outcomes and everday clinical practice.

Skills for Communicating with Patients, Third Edition is one of two companion books on improving communication in medicine, which together provide a comprehensive approach to teaching and learning communication skills throughout all levels of medical education in both specialist and family medicine. Since their publication, the first edition of thi

Clinical Communication Skills for Medicine is an essential guide to the core skills for effective patient-centered communication. In the twenty years since this book was first published the teaching of these skills has developed and evolved. Today’s doctors fully appreciate the importance of communicating successfully and sensitively with people receiving health care and those close to them. This practical guide to developing communication skills will be of value to students throughout their careers. The order of the chapters reflects this development, from core skills to those required to respond effectively and compassionately in challenging situations. The text includes case examples, guidelines and opportunities to encourage the reader to stop and think. The contents of the book cover: The fundamental elements of clinical communication, including skills for effectively gathering and sharing information, discussing sensitive topics and breaking bad news. Shared decision making, reflecting the rapid changes in expectations of medical care and skills for supporting patients in making decisions which are right for them. Communicating with a patient’s family, children and young people, patients from different cultural backgrounds, communicating via an interpreter and communicating with patients who have a hearing impairment. Diversity in communication, including examples of communicating with patients who have a learning disability, transgender patients, and older adult patients. Communicating about medical error, emphasising the importance of doctors being honest in the face of difficult situations. This is a practical guide to learning and developing communication skills throughout medical training. The chapters range from the development of basic skills to those dealing with challenging and difficult situations.

Drawing on the author's wealth of experience in health care communications and backed up by solid research, Communicating with Today's Patient is filled with proven techniques and time-tested strategies physicians and other clinicians can immediately put into action.

This book introduces the reader to the basic skills necessary for good communication between doctors (and other health professionals) and patients. The practical importance of such skills is outlined, making the doctor much more effective in all fields of medicine. This is not a book for the specialist reader, but aimed at all those who need to talk with patients.

For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.