Author's posts
Overcoming PPE barriers to compassionate communication
In the COVID-19 environment, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is the norm for clinicians. Monthly, U.S. health care workers use 89 million masks. While these masks help prevent the spread of disease, PPE creates barriers to effective communi…
The case for compassionate communication
A majority of physicians see between 11 and 20 patients per day, and among all practices, the majority of doctors spend between 17 and 24 minutes with each patient. Assuming a five-day workweek, this translates to more than 900 patient interactions per…
Is there a right way to break bad news?
An excerpt from It’s All In The Delivery: Improving Healthcare Starting With A Single Conversation. On that night when the desperate call came to pick up the critically ill baby with MAS, I felt very fortunate that Dr. Cunningham was my supervisor. Whe…
