While it’s easy to tell if a patient has jaundice, you can’t tell if a patient is health illiterate just by looking at him or her. However, recognizing and addressing health illiteracy is just as important to your patients’ well-being as making accurate clinical diagnoses. “If patients do not understand…
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In general, most doctors fall into 2 categories when it comes to patient communication. There is one group which tends to make everything extremely complicated. They use a lot of technical medical jargon, and often will end up mystifying patients by overcomplicating explanations of the disease process and treatment options….
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Not every doctor’s approach to medicine is a fit for every patient. This is just as well, as patients have different mind sets as well. In the best of both worlds, each patient will find the doctor who meshes best with his or her style. “Humor is one of the…
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When doctors are stumped by challenging clinical cases, they often refer patients to specialists to assist with the diagnosis and management of the patients’ conditions. “Doctors can learn a lot from expert patients.” -Aniruddha Malpani, MD, medical director of Malpani Infertility Clinic in Mumbai, India While specialists can be very…
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My patients, Mr. and Mrs. Gupta, are sitting in the waiting lounge of my in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic, waiting for their appointment. The usual array of consumer magazines is in front of them. But could the time they are spending reading about the most recent Bollywood movie or holiday…
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As doctors, we educate and inform patients every day. Some people call this patient education or patient communication. I like to call it information therapy, which can be defined as a prescription of the right information, for the right patient, at the right time, to help make a better health…
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Target your teaching: How patients learn best
Every appointment is an opportunity for teaching and learning, both for the patient and the doctor. However, given today’s real-life constraints, is expecting doctors to teach patients asking for the moon? “Your first question should not be, ‘What do I want my patient to know?’ but rather, ‘What do I…
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