The foundation of patient-centered care is the patient-professional relationship. By exploring both the disease and patients' unique experience of illness, healthcare professionals take into consideration their individual needs as well as their emotional and physical concerns. Using narratives to describe experiences of patients and professionals, this book reveals the four interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method: exploring health, disease and illness; understanding the whole person; finding common ground; and enhancing the patient-doctor relationship. The concluding chapters illustrate ways in which all four components interact with and complement each other and can be used in unison to the immeasurable benefit of both patient and professional. The stimulating narratives are all based on recent developments in the theoretical model of patient-centred clinical care. This wide-ranging, thought-provoking text is highly relevant to a wide range of healthcare professionals as well as medical educators and healthcare students. For physicians, narratives provide insight and illumination of what it truly means to be patient-centered. They also help clinicians to examine, in a reflective manner, what it means to be a healer. From the Introduction

Series Editors: Moira Stewart, Judith Belle Brown and Thomas R Freeman The application of the patient-centered clinical method has received international recognition. This book introduces and fully examines the patient-centered clinical method and illustrates how it can be applied in primary care. It presents case examples of the many problems encountered in patient-doctor interactions and provides ideas for dealing with these more effectively. It covers a wide range of topics and issues including palliative care, abuse, dying patients, ethical challenges and the role of self-awareness. Many narratives originate from patients' and family members' experiences, providing perspectives of great power and value. The Patient-Centered Care series is of great value to all health professionals, teachers and students in primary care.

This excellent book is the definitive work on an old but still evolving concept. . . . What impressed me most about the book is that the authors practice what they preach. The reader is treated the same way that the authors exhort us to treat our patients--with respect, tolerance, understanding, and caring."

--Canadian Medical Association

"This book is a concise description of a patient-centered model of patient communication, written for clinicians, educators, and researchers. There are six key elements in the authors'' model, each of which is illustrated by one or more clinical vignettes. The purpose is to describe and explore a model of physician-patient communication that emphasizes patients'' needs rather than the traditional medical model, for the purpose of education and research on patient-centered medicine. The authors clearly achieve the objective of describing and explaining their model."

--Doody?s Health Sciences Book Review Journal

"This book provides an excellent discussion of many of the issues related to patient-centered medicine. The authors outline the six interacting components, which are the assessment of disease and illness; the integration of that assessment with the understanding of the whole person finding common ground between the doctor and the patient; using each visit as an opportunity to build on the relationship; prevention and promotion; and throughout the process being realistic concerning the time, resources and energy needed. . . . Because occupational therapists work as members of a multidisciplinary team, this text is an excellent overview and discussion of the position of another discipline on issues related to patient-centered practice. As such, it broadens our understanding of the implications of applying this approach."

--British Journal of Occupational Therapy

The evolution of attitudes and roles in society are reflected in many facets of our lives. In the medical community, these changes are most evident in the shifting relationship between doctor and patient. Confronted with the demand for more egalitarian approaches to health care, physicians may find themselves ill prepared to accept--and participate in--this redefinition of traditional medical practice. In Patient-Centered Medicine, the authors present a six-component model to assist health practitioners in expanding and strengthening their relationships with patients. Thoughtful discussions present topics as diverse as conceptualizations of ill-health; consideration of the patient as an individual; the establishment of goals and cooperative strategy between physician and patient; and the realistic allocation of time, energy, and other resources of the health care provider. Emphasizing a holistic philosophy, the work encourages physicians to surpass treatment based strictly on a one-dimensional, biomedical assessment of their patients--and thus achieve greater results.

Professionals and advanced students in all health care fields will appreciate this illuminating and provocative volume.