Introduction to Medical Communication in Clinical Contexts

Sample

In the past 20 years, there have been increasing calls for practitioners in the medical professions to adopt what is called a “patient-centered” model of care (General Medical Council, 2003; Institute of Medicine, 2001). As part of this patient-centered model, there is growing agreement that patient-centered medical communication is an important skill for healthcare providers to adopt (Epstein, 2000; Levinson & Roter, 1993; Platt & Gordon, 1999). These patient-centered medical communication skills include appropriate diagnostic interviewing techniques, incorporating the patient’s view and voice in the treatment phase, and placing patients at the center of a medical communication culture. In addition to asking practitioners to become more patient centered, many of the accrediting medical college boards are beginning to explicitly require patient-centered communication be incorporated into the classroom and into clinical rotations (Commission, 2011; Liaison Committee, 2011). Although it is clear that interviewing techniques are an important skill and a skill that many practitioners are beginning to embrace in the medical communication (Boyle, Dwinnel, & Platt, 2005; Noble, Kubacki, Martin, & Lloyd, 2007; O’Keefe, Robertson, Sawyer, & Baghurst, 2003), the adoption of patient-centered medical communication in the health and allied professions is still limited.