Enhancing patient-provider communication

The loss of the patientʹs perspective, and indeed loss of the person of the patient, has come to characterize the worst of high-technology medicine. The medical climate of the post WW II era which fostered the development of miracle drugs also acted to diminish and undermine those important aspects of the doctor-patient relationship which is most critical to treatment effectiveness--trust, commitment, and confidence. The traditional biomedical paradigm hinders physiciansʹ efforts to improve patientsʹ compliance with complex regimens because its focus is primarily on the biomedical complexities of patientsʹ disease. What is critically needed is a refocus of medicine through the patientʹs eyes to reflect the lived experience of illness. Medicineʹs challenge is to supplant biomedicine with a new medical paradigm which not only captures the patientʹs perspective, but fully integrates the biologic and psychosocial components of the human experience. Communication skills are the key to the heart of the new medical paradigm. Research has demonstrated that these skills can be effectively taught and are associated with a variety of positive patient outcomes. Communication skills are like the many other technical skills which comprise the basis of medical practice and for which proficiency should be demanded.