Cancer communication is a very important section of health communication, and obviously a sensitive issue. When communicating with an individual who has a terminal illness, you may feel conflicted about what to say. We all mean well, but sometimes our words and actions can do more harm than good. Continue reading
Health Communication
4 Simple Tips on How to Listen Better
“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
– Ralph Nichols
Freedom to… Listen?
Listening is one of my favorite things to teach because Continue reading
How To Get Your Doctor To Listen To You – Part 2
“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.”
― Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness
Welcome back to the doctor-patient communication blog post series. In Part 1, we talked about two important strategies to get your doctor to listen to you. We’ll continue that list now with two more tactics to use to be sure you are getting the best healthcare possible. Continue reading
How Does Having a Nut Allergy Affect Mental Health and Relationships?
Grandma’s in the Hospital
A couple years ago I received an email from my mom letting me know that my grandma was in the hospital. At over 70 years old, she appeared to have developed a life-threatening nut allergy that nearly killed her. Continue reading
Doctors are Killing Themselves: One Thing Patients Can Do to Help
Working in the medical field is not easy. Long days are filled with helping people who are sick and probably not in the best of moods. Our nurses and doctors obviously want to help people, but who’s helping them? Continue reading
Are You Uncertain About A Health Issue? An Explanation For Why You May or May Not Seek Help
Have you ever sat by the phone, waiting to get test results from your doctor for you or a loved one, only to discover that when the call came you were hesitant to pick it up? What if it was bad news? For a second, you might have even debated whether not knowing would be better than confirming something is really wrong… Continue reading
Why I Decided to Start a Blog on Health Communication
One week ago I introduced you to my newest project, this blog. You have found out a little about who I am and the basics about what health communication is, but it occurred to me that you still don’t know my why for creating it. Continue reading
How to Get Your Doctor to Listen to You – Part 1
“A doctor who cannot take a good history and a patient who cannot give one are in danger of giving and receiving bad treatment.”
– Anonymous
Doctors are not typically known for their listening skills; however, what you might not realize is that patients are considered poor listeners too. A Consumer Reports survey asked 660 primary-care physicians about their patient challenges and found that 37% of doctors believed patients’ not following advice affected their ability to provide optimal care. Continue reading
Rumination: How It’s Harming You
Yesterday’s post described a simple method to increase your happiness by sending a daily gratitude list to others in your life.
Today, let’s talk about how our tendency to ruminate on the negative events that occur day to day can actually be harming our health and our relationships. But first, what’s rumination, and why is it so bad for us?