Skills For Communicating With Patients

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.

This book and its companion, Skills for Communicating with Patients, Second Edition, provide a comprehensive approach to improving communication in medicine. Fully updated and revised, and greatly expanded, this new edition examines how to construct a skills curricular at all levels of medical education and across specialties, documents the individuals skills that form the core content of communication skills teaching programmes, and explores in depth the specific teaching, learning and assessment methods that are currently used within medical education. Since their publication, the first edition of this book and its companionSkills for Communicating with Patients, have become standards texts in teaching communication skills throughout the world, 'the first entirely evidence-based textbooks on medical interviewing. It is essential reading for course organizers, those who teach or model communication skills, and program administrators.

The 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 this book and its companion, Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Medicine, have become texts in communication skills teaching. This substantially expanded third edition has been fully updated in relation to the current literature and revised to reflect the explosion of research on healthcare communication since the second edition was published in 2004. It incorporates considerable evidence in support of the skills of the Calgary-Cambridge Guides, offering a comprehensive and now even more evidence-based delineation of the skills that make a difference when communicating with patients. It explores the specific skills of doctor-patient communication and provides wide-ranging evidence of the improvement that those skills can make to health outcome and everyday clinical practice. It is unique in providing a secure platform of core skills which represent the foundations of doctor-patient communication --

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.

Physicians who care for patients with life-threatening illnesses face daunting communication challenges. Patients and family members can react to difficult news with sadness, distress, anger, or denial. This book defines the specific communication tasks involved in talking with patients with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Topics include delivering bad news, transition to palliative care, discussing goals of advance-care planning and do-not-resuscitate orders, existential and spiritual issues, family conferences, medical futility, and other conflicts at the end of life. Drs Anthony Back, Robert Arnold, and James Tulsky bring together empirical research as well as their own experience to provide a roadmap through difficult conversations about life-threatening issues. The book offers both a theoretical framework and practical conversational tools that the practising physician and clinician can use to improve communication skills, increase satisfaction, and protect themselves from burnout.

Virtually all physicians know that effective communication reduces malpractice risk. What may be less apparent is how it can also contribute to the practice of good medicine, even in the managed care setting. In this volume, health-care journalist Chris Hinz draws on research and real-life case examples to teach physicians and others involved in direct contact with patients valuable interpersonal communication skills and techniques. Hinz demonstrates, through slice-of-life vignettes and sample dialogue, how a physician's deeper understanding of patients - especially in more difficult situations - can help patients to understand the physician more completely.

Designed to help pharmacists and pharmacy students develop the communication skills they need to deliver quality patient care, this resource provides the guidelines needed for developing effective relationships with patients, other pharmacists and physicians.

Against a global backdrop of problematic adherence to medical treatment, this volume addresses and provides practical solutions to the simple question: “Why don’t patients take treatments that could save their lives?” The Wiley handbook of Healthcare Treatment Engagement offers a guide to the theory, research and clinical practice of promoting patient engagement in healthcare treatment at individual, organizational and systems levels. The concept of treatment engagement, as explained within the text, promotes a broader view than the related concept of treatment adherence. Treatment engagement encompasses more readily the lifestyle factors which may impact healthcare outcomes as much as medication-taking, as well as practical, economic and cultural factors which may determine access to treatment. Over a span of 32 chapters, an international panel of expert authors address this far-reaching and fascinating field, describing a broad range of evidence-based approaches which stand to improve clinical services and treatment outcomes, as well as the experience of users of healthcare service and practitioners alike. This comprehensive volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to offer an understanding of the factors governing our healthcare systems and the motivations and behaviors of patients, clinicians and organizations. Presented in a user-friendly format for quick reference, the text first supports the reader’s understanding by exploring background topics such as the considerable impact of sub-optimal treatment adherence on healthcare outcomes, before describing practical clinical approaches to promote engagement in treatment, including chapters referring to specific patient populations. The text recognizes the support which may be required throughout the depth of each healthcare organization to promote patient engagement, and in the final section of the book, describes approaches to inform the development of healthcare services with which patients will be more likely to seek to engage. This important book: Provides a comprehensive summary of practical approaches developed across a wide range of clinical settings, integrating research findings and clinical literature from a variety of disciplines Introduces and compliments existing approaches to improve communication in healthcare settings and promote patient choice in planning treatment Presents a range of proven clinical solutions that will appeal to those seeking to improve outcomes on a budget Written for health professionals from all disciplines of clinical practice, as well as service planners and policy makers, The Wiley Handbook of Healthcare Treatment Engagement is a comprehensive guide for individual practitioners and organizations alike.