The Most Unhealthy Relationship Of All

Book excerpt: Close Encounters of the Medical Kind The entire health care system should be overhauled to encourage communication. In the real world, any doctor or patient can learn to communicate with almost anybody right now. Courses in medical jargon and communication workshops are not mandatory. If you are reading this you have the required skills. All anybody really needs is a better idea of what's actually going on in the doctor patient dynamic. It seems every patient believes doctors are terrible communicators. Most doctors probably are, but so are most patients. Almost every doctor sees the great problem, but every single one of them sees him/herself as the outstanding exception. There's a reason the working title for this book was Doctors are From Mercury, Patients are From Pluto. As with any relationship, the blame isn't on one person or the other: It's a product of the way they work, or don't work, together. Take a trip behind the scenes and into the heads of everyone involved in the communication mess that's modern medicine. There are many tips and suggestions offered within. The truth is, once you understand the doctor patient relationship dynamic and why it's this way, all anyone needs is a bit of common sense.