Parkinson y Yo

Frederic W. Platt, MD es médico internista; su tarea profesional se ha desarrollado principalmente en Atención Primaria de Salud como médico generalista; también fue profesor clínico de medicina en la Universidad de Colorado y fue director de capacitación en comunicación para estudiantes de medicina de primer y segundo año. Es consultor regional del Bayer Institute for Health Care Communication. En el presente trabajo expone, de manera íntima y honesta, su experiencia como enfermo deParkinson.

Current Applications in Health Care Communication and Technology

Communication and technology in a health care setting is the most important tool in health promotion. Recently, cloud computing technology is used to enable cost-effective applications to facilitate communication, information sharing and record maintenance regarding health and medicine. It allows dissemination of information from facebook, which is currently the largest online social network. Combining cloud computing and social networking could allow creating health social networking system employing a human –oriented, interactive medical web and this would improve the quality of current applications in health care communication and technology.

Unhealthy Communication: Health Care Communication Between Majority and Minority Cultural Groups

Effective communication is important in almost every aspect of life. Within the medical setting, effective communication is paramount because the consequences of miscommunication can be deadly. In health care contexts interpersonal communication is not only affected by the nature of the interaction but also the power differentials between the people participating. The purpose of this paper is to examine how health care communication is affected by power dynamics. Specifically, it will look at the communication between majority-culture doctors and minority patients in order to advance the following argument: the asymmetrical power relationship between doctors and patients is exacerbated when doctors are from majority cultural backgrounds and patients are from minority cultural backgrounds, this is problematic because communication within a medical context is important for patient satisfaction, recall of information, and outcomes. Following the introduction, the literature review explores some of the trends in medical communication literature; these trends include discussions in the literature about the variables and behaviours that affect doctor-patient communication and the critical approach of research done on intercultural medical communication. The section after the literature review establishes that power gaps exist between doctors and patients as well as majority and minority cultural groups. The following paragraphs discuss the negative effects these power differentials have on the intercultural communication between patients and doctors when it comes to patient satisfaction, information recall, and outcomes, before coming to the conclusion that without clear expressions of their communicative differences the communication between these two groups will be compromised.

La formación médica en comunicación de malas noticias: Una revisión narrativa.

Una parte fundamental de la atención en salud es la comunicación con los pacientes y sus familias, proceso crítico a la hora de dar malas noticias. Desafortunadamente, muchos médicos no reciben entrenamiento específico durante su pregrado, desarrollando, muchas veces en forma inadecuada, sus habilidades para hacerlo. Este artículo presenta las bases conceptuales, pedagógicas y didácticas para formular cursos o actividades formales de entrenamiento en dar malas noticias en un programa de Medicina. Se incluye una síntesis de lo que se conoce sobre la percepción que tienen médicos, estudiantes y pacientes sobre el dar o recibir malas noticias, sobre los protocolos existentes y sobre las experiencias documentadas sobre tal entrenamiento. In health care, communication with patients and their families is essential, and a critical process when breaking bad news. Unfortunately, many doctors do not receive specific training during their undergraduate studies, often developing their skills in an empirical way to do so. This article presents the conceptual, pedagogical, and didactic bases for formulating courses or training activities to break bad news in every medicine program. It includes a synthesis of what is known within physicians, students and patients perception about this task, on existing protocols and on documented experiences of such training.