What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear

How refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients can lead to better health outcomes for all.

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Despite modern medicine's infatuation with high-tech gadgetry, the single most powerful diagnostic tool in the medical armamentarium is the doctor-patient conversation. This deceptively simple tool can achieve the lion’s share of medical diagnosis. However, what patients say and what doctors hear are often two vastly different things.

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Patients, anxious to convey their symptoms, feel an urgency to “make their case” to their doctors. Doctors, under pressure to be efficient, multitask while patients speak and often miss the key elements. Add in stereotypes, unconscious bias, conflicting agendas, and fear of lawsuits and the risk of misdiagnosis and medical errors multiplies.

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Though the gulf between what patients say and what doctors hear is often wide, Dr. Danielle Ofri proves that it doesn't have to be. With powerfully resonant stories, Ofri explores the high-stakes world of doctor-patient communication that we all must navigate. Reporting on the latest research studies, and interviewing scholars, doctors and patients, Ofri reveals how better communication can lead to better health outcomes.

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Beacon Press (February 7, 2017)

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