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The difficult consultation
Much has been written about the difficult consultation, from both the patients and doctors perspective. In contrast to much of the material in this course I have provided several articles that I would like you to review and discuss. (these are password protected as – they are only available to course participants).
- Cohen-Cole S A 1990. The "Difficult" Medical Patient In Walker, H.K.; Hall, W. D.; Hurst, J.W., editors Stoneham (MA) 1990 Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations: Butterworth.
- Ferguson W J, Candib L M, 2002 Culture, language, and the doctor-patient relationship. Family Medicine. 34, (5) 353--361
- Beckman H, 2008 Difficult patients/difficult situations In Feldman M D, Christensen J F 2008 (3rd ed.) Behavioral Medicine A Guide for Clinical Practice. McGraw Hill.
- Geoffrey H.Gordon G H, 2008 Giving bad news. In Feldman M D, Christensen J F 2008 (3rd ed.) Behavioral Medicine A Guide for Clinical Practice. Mcgraw Hill.
- Hogbin B, Fallowfield L, 1989 Getting it taped: the ‘bad news’ consultation with cancer patients. BJHM 41 (4) 330-4
Two excellent books to find out more details about this aspect of clinical work are those by Kurtz, Silverman & Draper 2005 (2nd ed) and Silverman, Kurtz & Draper 2005
I have only briefly touched on the problem of ethnicity and culture in the above articles for more detail see Sheikh & Gatrad 2007, and Spitzer 2003.
References
- Sheikh A, Gatrad R 2007 (2nd ed) Caring for Muslim Patients. Radcliffe Publishing Oxford.
- Spitzer J 2003 Caring for Jewish Patients. Radcliffe Publishing Oxford.
- Kurtz S, Silverman J, Draper J 2005 (2nd ed) Teaching and learning Communication Skills in Medicine. Radcliffe Publishing Oxford.
- Silverman J, Kurtz S, Draper J 2005 (2nd ed) Skills for Communicating with Patients. Radcliffe Publishing Oxford.