Talking with Patients

From the second edition:helpful volume ... It provides a good general introduction to the arts of communication ... While intended for medical, nursing and other healthcare students, many more senior health professionals would also benefit from reviewing their communication practice by reading this accessible primer.'Bulletin of Medical Ethics, September 1992This is a comprehensive basic text which meets the needs of a targeted audience of medical students … The text is presented in an eminently readable style and is certainly informative. The book contains a sensible reference list and concise index and has a feeling of compactness and readability which recommends it as good value to medical students embarking upon their clinical work.‘Martyn Gray, Bristol Royal Hospital for Sick Children, British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 1993, Vol 50, No 2⁄3the sections on talking to the elderly, and to the dying and especially that on talking to adolescents, are a welcome addition to the literature'F.M. Hull, Journal of Medical Ethics, September 1994As Medics or indeed clinicians, this is an invaluable text as it identifies how to:- pin-point cues in body language and verbal responses, convey messages via touch and well timed silences, the significance of a smile and thus how to avoid the ever present reality that is litigation. Each chapture ends with a breif summary of all the salient points addressed, and all the time favorite boxes containing bullet points are in abundance.‘Spincter

Philip R. Myerscough and Michael Ford are both at the University of Edinburgh.