Communication for Doctors: How to Improve Patient Care and Minimize Legal Risks

Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Foreword
Preface
About the editor
List of contributors
Patients are a virtue
	What do patients think of doctors as communicators?
	Making patients your partners
	Thirty ways to make your practice more "patient-friendly"
	Eight easy ways to make the medicine go down
	Answering questions patients don't ask
	Can your patients read your writing?
	How about a Hippocratic Oath for patients?
	Hippocrates was right: treat people, not their disease
	How non-verbal communication can give patients a sense of connectedness
	Empowered patients may have something to teach us
	How to communicate with patients who (think they) know more than you do
	How to deal with illiterate patients
	How to avoid alienating patients
	"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning"
	Seven ways to build trust with your patients on their first visit
Watch your language
	Medicine and the English language
	The printed word: encouraging a more coherent view of the world
	Writing and speaking painlessly
	Who's for Tennyson? The case for language and literature in medical school
	Splitting atoms and infinitives
	Making sure your language doesn't mystify patients
	Reforming the language of healthcare
	Euphemism in medicine: calling a spade a horticultural implement
	Humor in medicine: the whimsy of Richard Gordon
	Elevator etiquette: when is communication too effective?
	A conversation with Norman Cousins
	The future of medical publishing
Physician, heal thyself
	Becoming accustomed to public speaking
	Do you speak "Medispeak"?
	Let's hear it for sounder listening skills!
	Specialty scientific meetings: time for critical review
	Recognizing and avoiding non-verbal cues we give our patients
	Strategies for not appearing rushed
	Doctors can deliver hope as well as facts of prognosis
	The doctor patient
	The importance of doctors' "people skills"
	The profession's image: you're OK, they're not
	What's wrong with a little "loathsome finery"?
	Physicians: an endangered species?
	Manners and medicine
	Improving physicians' grades in communication
	How to avoid getting kicked by the media donkey
	Reading to keep up to date
	Are postgraduate courses necessary?
	Doctor-to-doctor communication
	Controlling the information balloon
Managing your practice
	How your staff can make or break your practice
	Improving your efficiency by maximizing your time
	Technology to enhance your practice
	Healthscapes: how physical surroundings influence perceptions of quality
	Hiring? Use this checklist
	How to handle complaints
	How to respond to an angry complaint
	How to improve your sign language
	A complete, updated and signed history is vital before treatment begins
	Making your reception area more welcoming
Minimizing risk
	Communication and documentation at the root of growing legal risks
	Clean up your documentation: use SOAP
	Telephone advice should be documented
	The telephone: instrument of the devil or practice enhancer?
	Ten tips for effective informed consent discussions
	Top ten issues in medical malpractice
	You've been called as an expert witness: now what?
	Terminating the physician-patient relationship
Quiz
	Are you a good communicator?
Patient questionnaire
Index