Anatole Boyard: "To the typical physician illness is a routine incident in his rounds, while for me it's the crisis of my life."

This book examines the barriers to good communication between doctors and patients. It includes lots of research studies, as well as anecdotal examples of both good and bad communication. The author stresses the importance of empathy: the patient has a story to tell and wants the doctor to hear it. However, doctors find themselves under constant time constraints, show more and studies show that a doctor will typically interrupt the patient after about 12 seconds. What I took from the book is that rather than just permitting doctors to bill for procedures, insurance companies need to allow a billing code for just listening to the patient. Apparently this concept has been introduced in the Netherlands. show less