Clinical Communication: Finding the Best Words to Inform, Comfort, and Motivate Patients

Communication is a core clinical competency-one that shapes patients’ trust, understanding, and ultimately healing.This engaging book provides a master class on expressing compassion in clinician-patient interactions, and on hearing what’s said in healing ways. Using intimate stories, practical insights, and memorable tips, Clinical Communication encourages clinicians and learners at all levels to appreciate the power of their words to inform, comfort, and motivate patients.Further, it pulls back the curtain on practical and emotional issues for healthcare professionals, providing patients with insights into what a clinician likely intended, and not how what was said might have sounded. Award-winning writer Dr. Wendy Harpham mines her experiences as both a physician and survivor of life-threatening illnesses to explore clinical scenarios that carry risks of miscommunication.Intimate vignettes illustrate patients’ challenges, which are used to discuss the varied ways clinicians’ words m