Hello friends, I’m so proud to offer a free webinar on unconscious bias in our language, in conjunction with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and the Region 2 Public Health Training Center. It is Tuesday, April 3 at Noon Eastern. Registration is here: https://tinyurl.com/Login2LearnAPR2018 Recent research on unconscious bias has shown how public health, […]
Patient Centered
The more differences between you and your patient, the more important it is to ditch deficit thinking
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 […]
“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 […]
10 Ways to communicate a complex idea during patient education
If you’ve got to explain something to a patient, how do you do it? If you have important information or complex ideas to share, how do you get it all across? This is another in my series on patient education. I’ve talked about getting clear on what you’re teaching and how you’re assessing; on patient […]