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Recommended Readings
Balint M: The Doctor, His Patient, and the Illness. New York, International Universities Press Inc, 1964. Balint’s classic work describes the therapeutic role of the physician’s understanding of the patient as a “drug.” This chapter is an excellent summary of the ways “difficult patients” ask for help from physicians, and how physicians can work with patient requests.
Brody H: The Healer’s Power. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1992. Discusses the power of healing in the patient-physician relationship and the struggles of working ethically with difficult patients.
Buckman R: How to Break Bad News. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1992. Dr. Buckman, a Canadian family physician, details a systematic, research-based model for giving patients and families bad news.
Candib L: Medicine and the Family. New York, Guilford Press, 1995. This is a wonderful discussion of the feminist relational view of the patient-physician relationship. The reader will learn how to view relationships in the context of society.
Epstein R: Mindful practice. JAMA 282:833–839, 1999. The author identifies the qualities of the mindful physician, who is able to maintain simultaneous self-awareness and awareness of the patient.
Frey JJ: The clinical philosophy of family medicine. AJM 104(4):327–329, 1998. Dr. Frey is a family physician who identifies the ways that difficult situations with patients may actually strengthen the patient physician relationship.
Newell R: Interview Skills for Nurses and Other Health Care Professionals. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1994. This book uses a cognitive behavioral model for structuring work with patients, including specific skills for working with emotions, assessing the patient, and helping patients change behaviors.
Peterson M: At Personal Risk: Boundary Violations in Professional-Client Relationships. New York, WW Norton & Co Inc, 1992. The author compares physicians, psychotherapists, and ministers in an analysis of “traps” in patient encounters that result in boundary violations, including sexual relations with patients/clients.
Rollnick S, Mason P, Butler C: Health Behavior Change. Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1999. The authors apply principles of motivational interviewing for behavioral change to health care relationships.
Stein H: The Psychodynamics of Medical Practice. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985. A useful introduction to the ideas in this chapter about relationships between patients and physicians.
Taylor TR: Understanding the choices that patients make. JABFP March–April 13(2):124–133, 2000. The author identifies the many reasons why patients may choose different courses of action than those recommended by their physicians.
References
Balint M: The Doctor, His Patient and the Illness, ed 2. New York, International Universities Press Inc, 1964.
Buckman R: How to Give Bad News. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
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Rollnick S, Mason P, Butler C: Health Behavior Change. Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1999.
Sassetti M: Domestic violence, in Elliott B, Halverson K, Hendricks-Matthews M (eds):Family Violence and Abusive Relationships. Primary Care 20(2):289–306, 1993.
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Suchman A: Control and relation. In Suchman A, Bothelho R, Henton-Walker P: Partnerships in Healthcare. Rochester, University of Rochester Press, 1998.
Taylor TR: Understanding the choices that patients make. JABFP March–April 13(2):124–133, 2000.
US Public Health Service Recommendations for Human Immunodeficiency Virus: Counseling and Voluntary Testing for Pregnant Women. Morbidity Mortality Weekly Rep 44(FF-7):1–14, 1995.
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Witte TN, Kuzel AJ: Elderly deaf patients’ health care experiences. JABFP 13(1):81–83, 2000.
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Zoppi, K.A., McKegney, C.P. (2002). The Difficult Clinical Conversation. In: Mengel, M.B., Holleman, W.L., Fields, S.A. (eds) Fundamentals of Clinical Practice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47565-0_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47565-0_13
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