Health Coaching: A Road to Empowerment

See my latest The Empowered Patient column in the October 15th issue of MPNforum. MPNforum October 15, 2012 - The Empowered Patient.

In the column, I share my personal experience with health coaching as well as my reflections about the qualities to look for in a coach. In sum, "Great coaches empower us by helping us to build the self-monitoring, self-assessment and problem-solving skills that we need to achieve long term success."

More on Empathy and Effective Leadership

See my latest column on the relationship between empathy and effective leadership in the October, 2012 issue of MPNforum.

http://mpnforum.com/the-empowered-patient-oct-2012/

Empathy and Leadership

More on the Empathy Gap in the Race for the White House

This article in Salon covering Michele Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention provides another take on the emapthy gap between the major US political Parties:

Republicans’ empathy gap

The Empathy Gap - Obama vs. Romney

Empathy, or the lack of it, is an important and perhaps crucial issue in the US Presidential campaign. Results of a CBS News poll released earlier this week shows that half of registered voters think that Mitt Romney does not understand their problems, reflecting an empathy gap with President Obama. See: CBS News Empathy Gap Poll

In an interview that appeared in the online magazine, Slate, noted British author Marin Amis predicts an Obama victory because he sees a “disastrous lack of empathy” in Mitt Romney. See: Slate interview with Martin Amis

Barbara Ficarra on the Value of Empathy

See Barbara Ficarra's post on her Huntington Post blog on the value of empathy.

The Joy of Throwing - New Post on MPNforum

See my latest column in the Summer Supplement to MPNforum. It's entitled the Joy of Throwing and chronicles my recent efforts to qualify for the National Senior Games in 2013. Go to: MPNforum

Graphic on Mind the Gap Emphasizes Impact of Clinician-Patient Communication

A new posting on the blog, Mind the Gap, by Stephen Wilkins, graphically shows the value of good clinician-patient communication. See: Mind the Gap Graphic.

I really like the quote he included from George Bernard Shaw, "The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred".

Shaw's quote reflects a key finding from research on clinician-patient communication: clinicians who have lover levels of skill are least likely to be aware of their skill deficit. For example, a review on the effectiveness of self-assessment of learner needs by I. Colthart and colleages (Medical Teacher, 30(2):124-45, 2008) found evidence that that the least competent are also the least able to self-assess accurately. This is why we can't count on clinician self-report and need to assess the competency of clinicians using methods that provide direct evidence of clinician communication skills, such as audio or videos of actual encounters,  evaluations of simulated encounters, assessment of patient experience. (See: Levinson et al.,  Health Aff (Millwood) 29(7): 1310-8.)

The good news is that the accuracy of self-assessment can be enhanced by feedback, particularly video and verbal feedback.