The Sensitive Side of Health Care

WELCOME TO WARM & FUZZY MEDICINE!

Warm & Fuzzy is so titled to emphasize the relevance of communication and interpersonal characteristics of patient care. Warm & Fuzzy Medicine is a place for medical & health sciences students, faculty, & professionals to develop skills, increase awareness, improve sensitivities, and stimulate thinking about the psychosocial aspects of patient care. Sometimes mocked as “touchy-feely” (a phrase we embrace here) suggesting a less valuable form of care, evidence from over forty years of research demonstrates the importance of patient-centered communication as a fundamental ingredient regarding healing.

Core assumptions:

  1. Strategies fostering good communication and interpersonal relationship building in medical settings are valuable, teachable, & can be beneficial not only to patients, but also the health care professionals who use them.
  2. Although much is known by health communication scholars, many effective communication and interpersonal relationship building strategies are not necessarily taught or familiar to health care professionals.

Core objectives:

  1. The primary objective of this site is to get the word out about strategies that foster effective patient-centered communication.
  2. Because of the vast health communication literature available, we’ll examine interpersonal patient-clinician communication in many settings (e.g., medical, dental, allied-health care).
  3. The topics presented here are designed to provide evidence-based practical guides and tools (not rules) for clinicians to use when collaborating with patients. Over time, we hope this site will become a comprehensive resource to draw from when encountering a variety of situations involving patients.
  4. We hope to inspire awareness of the effects of communication in clinical settings and to identify and advance strategies that are shown to improve patient-clinician collaboration, patient and clinician satisfaction, and ultimately patient health.
  5. We hope to keep the tone fun, positive, enlightening, and thought-provoking rather than preachy.
  6. We’ll focus on effective communication strategies and techniques that health care professionals are already practicing, which lead to positive results. PATIENT-CENTERED COMMUNICATION SKILLS CAN POSITIVELY IMPACT PATIENT ADHERENCE TO TREATMENT, PATIENT SATISFACTION, AND PATIENT SELF-MANAGEMENT (Levinson et al., 2010).

When-in-doubt training tutorials

These sections offer details and conditions to consider, and describe behavioral techniques to practice, test, and assess before adopting. Controversies, questions, and activities are included for your amusement, contemplation, and discussion. Some strategies may seem simplistic, inviting questions like – “Who doesn’t know this or Who doesn’t do this stuff?” – They are included because research indicates that although some behaviors can be important, there are health professionals who are unaware of how influential and effective these fundamental practices can be.

Finally, for those interested in the research, references are provided for further investigation.

Author:

Kyra Perry Rothenberg, Ph.D.

Instructor and Director of the Health Communication Program at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Rothenberg has been teaching and advising health sciences majors, graduate students, and health care professionals and programs about the importance of communication in health care settings for over a decade. Some topics selected for this website emerged from various investigations, discussions, and controversies raised in these settings.

Research assistants help compile some of the material used on various topics. They are identified for their contributions on relevant pages.

Recommended readings:

Beyond These Walls: Readings in Health Communication by Linda C. Lederman

Communicating About Health: Current Issues and Perspectives by Athena du Pre’

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler

Recommended films & documentaries featuring communication and health:

BBC Horizon: The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow

PBS Frontline: Remaking American Medicine: Health Care in the 21st Century

PBS Frontline: Sick Around the World: Other Rich Countries Have Universal Health Care

PBS NOVA: The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Wit directed by Mike Nichols