This has been called an evolution from physician-centered

medicine to patient-centered medicine.17 Even before the wide-spread use of the Internet, patients have become more assertive, demanding as a “right” the provision of more detailed information, and they insist on a greater role in deciding on specifics of diagnosis and treatment. The civil rights movement has had its parallel in the growth of the concept of patients’ rights, a concept that did not really achieve mainstream acceptance until the 1970s. Not all physicians welcomed these Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical changes. Some felt threatened by the concept that patients might question their advice. But in essence they have had no choice. A societal revolution has enveloped them, and, willingly or not, the world had changed. ADVANTAGES OF GOOD COMMUNICATION In my days at medical school they talked about “bedside manner”, a vague term which suggested some degree of “professional” behavior Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical intended to impress the patient with the physician’s stature and skills. These behaviors were neither defined nor taught. Yet the value of empathic communication with patients was not all that new; it had been discussed impressively many years earlier. William Peabody’s classic

article “The care of the patient” published almost a century ago18 was Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical distributed to thousands of entering medical students throughout the United States over many decades. Its classic admonitions retain Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical eternal validity. And George Engel’s call19,20 for a move to a bio-psycho-social approach to medicine was along similar lines. But serious research on the impact of good physician communication began to flourish only years later. The serious deficiencies in physician communication skills were highlighted by Korsch and her colleagues10–11 and by numerous subsequent researchers.12–21 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical There is now a clear consensus among medical educators1–5 that formal teaching programs in communication skills should be an essential part of the medical curriculum. Much research has shown unequivocally that the

old cliché about the advantages of “good bedside manner” does not represent some luxury but that good communication has multiple tangible benefits for patient, physician, and society. That patients felt better if the physician XAV-939 cost communicated well was not surprising. But many other tangible benefits have since been described. Sodium butyrate It turned out that physicians who communicate well feel better and suffer less “burn-out”.22 Physicians who communicate well elicit not only more information about psychosocial issues, as might be expected, but are rewarded by more important biomedical information as well,23 because a trusting patient will be much more open and revealing. But not only will more information be elicited, but patient compliance will be increased,22 and the objective patient response to therapy will be enhanced.