This book aims to increase awareness about the importance of communication in health care. Written by healthcare professionals and Communication experts, it is replete with real-life scenarios that readers can identify with, and will serve as a guide to effective and efficient communication that affects the most important stakeholders in health care – The patient.
For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.
Psychotherapy across distance and time, from Freud’s treatments by mail to crisis hotlines, radio call-ins, chatbots, and Zoom sessions. Therapy has long understood itself as taking place in a room, with two (or more) people engaged in person-to-person conversation. And yet, starting with Freud’s treatments by mail, psychotherapy has operated through multiple communication technologies and media. These have included advice columns, radio broadcasts, crisis hotlines, video, personal computers, and mobile phones; the therapists (broadly defined) can be professional or untrained, strangers or chatbots. In The Distance Cure, Hannah Zeavin proposes a reconfiguration of the traditional therapeutic dyad of therapist and patient as a triad: therapist, patient, and communication technology. Zeavin tracks the history of teletherapy (understood as a therapeutic interaction over distance) and its metamorphosis from a model of cure to one of contingent help. She describes its initial use in ongoing care, its role in crisis intervention and symptom management, and our pandemic-mandated reliance on regular Zoom sessions. Her account of the “distanced intimacy” of the therapeutic relationship offers a powerful rejoinder to the notion that contact across distance (or screens) is always less useful, or useless, to the person seeking therapeutic treatment or connection. At the same time, these modes of care can quickly become a backdoor for surveillance and disrupt ethical standards important to the therapeutic relationship. The history of the conventional therapeutic scenario cannot be told in isolation from its shadow form, teletherapy. Therapy, Zeavin tells us, was never just a “talking cure”; it has always been a communication cure.
Over 250 diagnostic and treatment algorithms over 900 topics providing clinical guidance current evidence-based designations highlighted in each topic at-a-glance format with concise and bulleted text, ICD-10 codes, dsm-5criteria quick information to help in diagnosis, treatment selection and medication dosing easy-to-use reference at point of care providing quick answer to a direct clinical question.
The Textbook of Palliative Care Communication is the authoritative text on communication in palliative care, providing a compilation of international and interdisciplinary perspectives. The volume was uniquely developed by an interdisciplinary editorial team to address an array of providers including physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains, and unites clinicians with academic researchers interested in the study of communication. By featuring practical conversation and curriculum tools stemming from research, this text integrates scholarship and inquiry into translatable content that others can use to improve their practice, teach skills to others, and engage in patient-centered communication. The volume begins by defining communication, explicating debatable issues in research, and highlighting specific approaches to studying communication in a palliative care context. Chapters focus on health literacy and cultural communication, patient and family communication, barriers and approaches to discussing palliative care with specific patient populations, discussing pain, life support, advance care planning, and quality of life topics such as sexuality, spirituality, hope, and grief. Team communication in various care settings is outlined and current research and education for healthcare professionals are summarized. Unique to this volume are chapters on conducting communication research, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to promote further research in palliative care.
Janet's skill in this book lies in her ability to combine theory with narrative and natural science with humanity to create a text that resonates deeply.bringing to light the message that intellectual knowledge is nothing if not accompanied by sensitive delivery and humanity. Mary Kiely in the Foreword This practical thought-provoking guide provides the unemotional clear and accurate advice necessary for communicating with patients in a palliative care setting. Completely up to date this book includes new initiatives born of the End of Life Care Strategy (2008) and details the ethics of key issues in palliative care. Crucially it considers the fine art of communication - the pivotal aspect of being a palliative care expert that is so difficult to quantify and teach. It uses genuine anecdotes and case studies to bring theory to life and assist in everyday application. Communication in Palliative Care is a wide-ranging invaluable resource for palliative care professionals across all clinical settings.
Communication is a core skill for medical professionals when treating patients, and cancer and palliative care present some of the most challenging clinical situations. This book provides a comprehensive curriculum to help oncology specialists optimize their communication skills.
