While clinicians face increasing time pressure in caring for patients, communication with the patient can suffer. Communication is especially important in caring for the increasingly culturally diverse patient population in the United States. Different values, beliefs, and attitudes about health, illness, and health care can affect illness outcomes. These are best understood through dialogue. P...

Breast cancer survivors must manage chronic side effects of original treatment. To manage these symptoms, communication must include both biomedical and contextual lifestyle factors. Sixty breast cancer survivors and 6 providers were recruited to test a conceptual model developed from uncertainty in illness theory and the dimensions of a patient-centered relationship. Visits were audio-taped, t...

compassion is a complex process that is innate, determined in part by individual traits, and modulated by a myriad of conscious and unconscious factors, immediate context, social structures and expectations, and organizational “culture.” compassion is an ethical foundation of healthcare and a widely shared value; it is not an optional luxury in the healing process. while the interrelations betw...

The medical interview is the physician's initial and perhaps most important diagnostic procedure, but physicians vary in their abilities and skills in physician-patient communication. Information gathering, relationship building, and patient education are the 3 essential functions of the medical interview. A physician-centered interview using a biomedical model can impede disclosure of problems...

Of adults with access to the internet, 90% would prefer communicating with their physician by email. Unclear is under what circumstances would patients prefer email over other modes of communicating with their physician. Patient centered communication increases information seeking behaviors on the part of the patient. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between patient centered and ...