Patient education and counseling
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Comparative Study
Mind the gap: Learners' perspectives on what they learn in communication compared to how they and others behave in the real world.
To explore the lack of the learners' voice at previous international conferences on communication in healthcare. ⋯ Integrating communication skills into medical school curricula is essential. Identifying enthusiastic doctors who are effective communicators and have the initiative to help develop this is vital. It may be beneficial to train simulated patients to react to students in a variety of different ways to reflect the diversity of true patient responses. In addition, having a better understanding of the multidisciplinary roles and rapidly developing technology would facilitate not only communication between health professionals but would also help optimize patient care.
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To measure rapport between medical students and standardized patients using observer ratings; to relate these ratings to students' emotional awareness and to behavior within the medical interaction; and to assess the relative validity of using excerpts of different lengths for the measurement of rapport. ⋯ Clinicians, researchers, and educators should focus on rapport building, even very early in the medical visit.
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Comparative Study
From patient talk to physician notes-Comparing the content of medical interviews with medical records in a sample of outpatients in Internal Medicine.
An increasing number of consultations are delivered in group practices, where a stable 1:1 relationship between patient and physician cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, correct documentation of the content of a consultation is crucial to hand over information from one health care professional to the next. ⋯ Patient involvement should be advocated not only to medical decision making but also to the way physicians document the content of a consultation. It is a joint responsibility of patient and health care professional to decide, which information should be kept and thus be communicated to another health care professional in future consultations.
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Medical errors occur frequently in routine health care. Historically, many of these errors were not disclosed to patients but increasingly there are calls for frank and open disclosure of errors to patients and families. This article provides an overview of what information should be disclosed about errors, what patients want to be told, the attitudes and skills of physicians in disclosure, and the barriers to effective disclosure. This article also includes a description of the changing policy environment in North America that is encouraging and mandating disclosure of errors.