One medical educator wrote me in response to the podcast, “How a small change in what you say can improve your patient education.” She thanked me for giving a ‘name’ to the problem that is a deficit perspective. She pointed out the tension between approaching a patient focused on the problem, and approaching a patient […]
Culturally & Linguistically Appropriate
Health communication has all the pitfalls of everyday communication
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could magically leave our awkwardness, doubt, or frustration at the door when we have to communicate in a professional capacity? In the summer of 2016, I was in the audience when Marcella Nunez-Smith, of Yale’s School of Medicine, gave a keynote address to a conference of health communication researchers. In […]
“I don’t want to unintentionally offend people”
I was coaching a physician on communication, and at one point our conversation took an interesting turn. We had been talking about interprofessional communication, when the physician told me she was worried about offending people unintentionally. At first, I thought she was talking about her colleagues. But she also gave some examples of interactions with […]
Two things to remember before you educate your next patient
Today brings a close to a series I started a few months back, called 5 steps to improve your patient education. I promised to take a closer look at each of those 5 steps. So far I’ve written about eliciting patient background knowledge; how you handle your medical knowledge; being clear about your goals for […]
What does health literacy mean to you?
A few months ago, I decided to conduct an informal survey. I’d begun thinking about the relationships between health literacy research and health care workers’ everyday practice. Since I often get to talk with physicians one-on-one, I decided to ask the next few physicians I encountered a simple question: When you hear the phrase ‘health […]
A practical way to address unconscious bias in language
Over the course of last year, I spoke several times with an African American male physician. At one point, we were talking about his professional journey in medicine. He mentioned that he had learned to be more comfortable with, as he put it, “…being the only Black person in the room. Hearing ‘How did YOU […]