Original article
Difficult Doctors, Difficult Patients: Building Empathy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2016.09.015Get rights and content

Abstract

Effective doctor-patient communication facilitates the therapeutic relationship, promotes patient physical and mental health, and improves physician satisfaction. Methods of teaching effective communication use a range of techniques, typically combining didactic instruction with simulated communication encounters and reflective discussion. Rarely are patients and physicians exposed to these instructions as colearners. The evidence for the utility of graphic stories, comics, and cartoons to improve patient comprehension and self-regulation is small but encouraging. The authors describe the use of graphic medicine as a teaching tool for engendering empathy from both the physician and the patient for the other during a shared clinical encounter. This use of educational comics in a colearning experience represents a new use of the medium as a teaching tool.

Key Words

Graphic medicine
comics in education
consumer health information
bibliotherapy
patient communication
clinician education
pictorial work
informed consent
doctor-patient relations
communication

Cited by (0)

Dr Carlos is deputy editor of JACR. All other authors have no conflicts of interest related to the material discussed in this article.

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