Presents unique and groundbreaking perspectives on communication in the practice of everyday healthcare - increasing patient safety and literacy. This life skills text educates all individuals, both those within healthcare professions as well as society in general, as every human being will eventually interface with the healthcare system.

Highly Commended at the British Medical Association Book Awards 2016 Clinical Communication in Medicine brings together the theories, models and evidence that underpin effective healthcare communication in one accessible volume. Endorsed and developed by members of the UK Council of Clinical Communication in Undergraduate Medical Education, it traces the subject to its primary disciplinary origins, looking at how it is practised, taught and learned today, as well as considering future directions. Focusing on three key areas – the doctor-patient relationship, core components of clinical communication, and effective teaching and assessment – Clinical Communication in Medicine enhances the understanding of effective communication. It links theory to teaching, so principles and practice are clearly understood. Clinical Communication in Medicine is a new and definitive guide for professionals involved in the education of medical undergraduate students and postgraduate trainees, as well as experienced and junior clinicians, researchers, teachers, students, and policy makers.

Medical Communication in Clinical Contexts

People in general are concerned about the health of themselves and their families, but they lack reliable access to health knowledge. In order to ensure that people get accurate medical knowledge, dissemination of such knowledge by medical professionals is advocated. This is the basis of medical communication. This book covers the theoretical model of medical communication, explains the differences from medical science popularization and health communication, and from the perspective of medical practice, provides many examples to illustrate the practical application and significance of medical communication. It is hoped that this book will attract more people to join the team of medical communicators, pass the correct medical knowledge to the public, and ultimately the incidence and mortality of diseases can be reduced and the health level of people improved.

Health and illness are storied experiences that necessarily entail personal, cultural, and political complexities. For all of us, communicating about health and illness requires a continuous negotiation of these complexities and a delicate balance between what we learn about the biology of disease from providers and our own very personal, subjective experiences of being ill. Storied Health and Illness brings together dozens of noteworthy scholars, both established and emerging, in a provocative collection that embraces narrative ways of knowing to think about, analyze, and reconsider our own and others’ health beliefs, behaviors, and communication. Comprehensive content reflects the editors’ substantial research in integrative health, narrative care, and innovative ways of improving well-being and quality of life in personal relationships, healthcare, the workplace, and community settings. Unique narrative approaches to the study of health communication include: • 14 chapters written by 22 contributors who use engaging stories from their own research or personal experience to introduce and ground foundational communication concepts in healthcare, health promotion, community support, organizational wellness, and other health-related sites of interest. • Compelling stories of individuals living with the inherent challenges and unexpected opportunities of mental illness, addiction, aging, cancer, dialysis, sexual harassment, miscarriage, obesity, alopecia, breastfeeding, health threats to immigrant workers, developmental differences, and youth gun violence. • 36 Health Communication in Action (HCIA) sidebars that highlight applied research of innovative health communication scholars in their own words and then prompt readers to think more deeply about their own perspectives and experiences. • Theorizing Practice boxes that encourage readers to reflect on stories that describe significant experiences in their own and others’ lives as they consider assumptions and enlarge their viewpoints in previously unimagined ways.

This volume charts new methodological territories for rhetorical studies and the emerging field of the rhetoric of health and medicine. In offering an expanded, behind-the-scenes view of rhetorical methodologies, it advances the larger goal of differentiating the rhetoric of health and medicine as a distinct but pragmatically diverse area of study, while providing rhetoricians and allied scholars new ways to approach and explain their research. Collectively, the volume’s 16 chapters: Develop, through extended examples of research, creative theories and methodologies for studying and engaging medicine’s high-stakes practices. Provide thick descriptions of and heuristics for methodological invention and adaptation that meet the needs of needs of new and established researchers. Discuss approaches to researching health and medical rhetorics across a range of contexts (e.g., historical, transnational, socio-cultural, institutional) and about a range of ethical issues (e.g., agency, social justice, responsiveness).