Extensive research produced robust evidence that the use of patient-centered and relationship-centered counseling skills enhances patients’ likelihood of successful change. This module reviews the “5 A’s” – Assess, Agree, Advise, Assist, and Arrange – and describe specific skills to implement…
In this module, we invite you to envision difference and diversity as resources for improving patient care. We delineate skills that can bridge differences and lower the anxiety that accompanies straying outside your cultural “comfort zone.” Diplomate Engagement Self-assessment questions…
The module explains nonverbal communication all the behavioral signals that go on between interacting individuals, exclusive of the verbal content. When two or more of us are together, we human beings cannot fail to communicate at all times, even when…
Reaching agreement is a complex process that includes identifying the nature of the problem, defining preferred roles and involvement in decision making, agreeing on goals, and gathering and sharing biomedical and psychosocial information. Participants in this process must address feelings,…
Clinicians can share information and build collaborative relationships by using specific communication strategies. Use ASK-TELL-ASK to stay in dialogue and to assess and respond to patients’ information needs and emotions. Celebrate and support patients’ successes. These efforts will help meet…
You greatly improve your patients’ outcomes when you jointly construct the story of the illness, weaving the patient’s elaboration of the biomedical and psychosocial threads together with your own hypotheses. The primary goals of information gathering are to elicit biomedical…
You greatly improve your patients’ outcomes when you jointly construct the story of the illness, weaving the patient’s elaboration of the biomedical and psychosocial threads together with your own hypotheses. This module explores the primary goals of information gathering, which…
Patients usually present to primary care offices with an average of three concerns. Elicitation of all of the patient’s symptoms and concerns in the ambulatory and in-patient setting requires little additional time and diminishes the likelihood of late arising concerns…
A positive doctor-patient relationship is the key to medical care. Substantial evidence indicates that a relationship of trust and respect promotes better adherence to treatment recommendations, better physical and emotional outcomes and the disclosure of patients’ hidden concerns. Furthermore, the…
In this module we introduce the medical interview and review important background concepts. We describe the process of obtaining and communicating a complete history through integration of doctor-centered and patient-centered approaches to obtaining information, and then synthesizing the information into…
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