|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
Communication still doesn’t come easy I read with interest your article entitled “A Dramatic Turn” [Spring 2001] regarding the physician-patient relationship. I suspect my experience during my tenure at Yale in the early 1980s was fairly typical. I certainly received the message that truly caring about the patient as an individual was very important, but I did not receive any training regarding how to make that “caring” experience happen on any consistent basis. This article tells me that Yale still cares very much about the patient. But I was disappointed to note its suggestion that Yale still does not know how to teach the student how to make the physician-patient relationship happen within the short appointment reality of primary care today. I am now one of the chiefs of ophthalmology with Kaiser and The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) in California. I have also just been recruited to be the local “communication consultant” in our facility. Communication consultants like myself are given training on the essential ingredients of an effective patient-provider interaction. These evidence-based elements have been dubbed the “Four Habits of the Highly Effective Clinician.” They form the backbone of an eight-hour curriculum which teaches the participants four key skills that allow the physician to make a satisfying human connection with the patient—even within a 15-minute interaction. Awareness-building presentations like those of Ms. Smith’s are highly valuable. I think the next step might be offering our physicians-in-training a program similar to TPMG’s, one that teaches specific and achievable techniques to improve communication. Ellen Kolarik,
M.D. ’85
Taking the pulse of health interactions In the Spring 2001 issue, the article “A Dramatic Turn” provided a thought-provoking look at the physician-patient relationship. We want to call your attention to another Yale-based initiative that examines the clinician-patient relationship. The Program for the Study of Health Care Relationships, funded by the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation, is a collaborative project between Yale University and the University of Connecticut. The program’s mission is to bring issues surrounding the relational aspects of care to the forefront of the ongoing discourse about health care in Connecticut and the nation. It seeks to enable patients, health-care professionals, providers, health policymakers and other interested individuals to engage in successful partnerships, with the shared goal of improving patient outcomes, especially in the context of adherence to therapeutic regimes. A multidisciplinary team has
been working for a year to study the relational aspects of care and their
effects on adherence. The interdisciplinary program provides a forum for
a range of issues, including health education; the role of the Internet
and technology; the influence of organizations, insurance and policy;
and the relationships among professions, as well as with patients. The
group consists of physicians, nurses, social workers, consumers, academics
and others, and has Sally Cohen,
R.N., Ph.D., Director,
Thank you for an outstanding magazine May I take this opportunity to commend you on the excellent quality and caliber of Yale Medicine. It is outstanding, informative, insightful and pleasurable to read. Thank you for your superior effort. Lee H. Strohl,
M.D. ’68
The current format of Yale Medicine is terrific. It is global in its perspective, clearly informative and upbeat. Your accomplishment as well as the accomplishments of those featured rekindles the pride we all shared in YSM when we fledged various decades ago. Thank you for your efforts. I have begun looking forward greatly to successive issues. Glenn L. Kelly,
M.D. ’62, HS ’66
What the story said
about I was very much impressed by “What the Needles Said” [Summer 2001]. This very positive and accurate reporting of the events that led to the creation and successful implementation of New Haven’s Needle Exchange Program is perhaps the best summary of the program that I have seen. The Yale medical community deserves a great deal of gratitude for its support of needle exchange at a time when the entire nation was still very much in a “black death/bubonic plague” panic in regard to aids. I’m proud that my city and my police department proved positive in rising to the challenges which were thrust upon us at that moment in history. Nicholas Pastore, Director, Criminal Justice Policy Fellowship; Former Chief of Police, New Haven, Conn.
From the editor Walking a fine line Every so often someone will
offer an idea for an article or a comment about a piece they read in “the
journal,” meaning Yale Medicine. Along with my thanks, I usually
note that Yale Medicine is more journalism than journal, a magazine
rather than a medical tome. This is an important distinction in academia,
where the peer-reviewed scrutiny and serious aims We’re a slightly different animal. Our primary goal is to keep alumni in touch with each other and informed about the work and scholarship that goes on here. Our objective is to be intriguing to a wide audience and still relevant to each of our readers, whose interests run the gamut from structural biology to the history of medicine. As cartoonist Sidney Harris observes below, what one subspecialist finds hopelessly general may be incomprehensible to another learned person. It is our intent to bridge that gap in a way that readers will find engaging. We hope you’ll let us know how we’re doing. As this issue went to press, we received some welcome feedback from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which honored Yale Medicine with its highest level of recognition, the Award of Excellence. Also this issue, we are completing the final phase of the magazine’s redesign. I appreciate the suggestions we’ve received along the way and hope you like the result. Michael Fitzsousa
|
Originally
published in Yale Medicine, Autumn 2001.