This week, I’ll start with a scary story. The clock is ticking. The spotlight is on you. You’re the person everyone wants a part of. And you’re in the middle of educating a patient on a crucial topic. But it’s going nowhere. Crickets. “The strategy I’ve been recommending for years was not working.” “I was […]
Patient Education
2 ways to improve your medical metaphors
A physician was talking with me about an article I wrote on metaphors, a few months ago. He agreed it was a hot topic, and an important one to stop and take time to consider: “Metaphors and analogies are something we do casually, without much thought,” he said. “Sometimes the metaphor did not give the […]
Make this one change to improve your patient education
A while ago, I wrote a piece called 5 steps to improve your patient education. I promised I would gradually dig deeper into each of the 5 steps. Last month I dove into the topic of patients’ background knowledge and how it can help you. This time, it’s about your subject matter. Your medical knowledge. […]
Infographic: 11 Health literacy tips for providers
October is Health Literacy Month, and we’re celebrating! We even brought you a present: a snazzy infographic. Health literacy is kind of a big deal (but you knew that already). Still, it seems there’s not too much talk about concrete, specific steps that providers can take – to do something about improving patients’ health literacy. […]
If you wonder about these health communication issues, you’re not alone
When things go wrong at work–or something just bugs us–it can be easy to push these negative thoughts aside and move on. It’s especially easy to dismiss our concerns if we don’t hear others talking about similar issues. Maybe, we tell ourselves, it’s nothing. Or we assume it’s a problem no one else has. So it shouldn’t […]
11 Health literacy tips for Providers
Health literacy is one of the hottest topics in health. And October is health literacy month. So this month, we’ll be featuring it around here. A nurse manager recently talked with me about a concern she had about patients’ health literacy. A few weeks earlier, she’d been preparing to see a patient. When looking at […]