This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Karl F. Weyrauch, MD, MPH
Seattle, Wash

JAMA. 1995;274(1):22-23.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—I applaud the recent article by Dr Hickson and colleagues,¹ which draws attention to an important topic in primary care: physician-patient communication. Their data demonstrate that for 21 obstetricians in Florida who were sued frequently, patients offered more than twice as many complaints in response to open-ended questions as did patients of 133 obstetricians who were not sued at all. Frequently, the object of these complaints was the impersonal, rushed, and unsatisfactory interpersonal interaction between patient and physician. The article and Dr Levinson's accompanying Editorial² imply that the cause of poor communication is physicians' deficient interpersonal skills.

Although I agree with the authors that interpersonal skills were targets of patient complaints, I do not agree that blaming deficient interpersonal skills is sufficient interpretation of the root cause for patient dissatisfaction. Instead, I suggest that three possible factors in addition to, or perhaps in place of, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?