Interpreting Health Benefits and Risks: A Practical Guide to Facilitate Doctor-Patient Communication - Softcover

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Erik Rifkin is the president of an environmental consulting firm that specializes in the characterization of ecological and human health risks from exposure to soil, water, air and sediments. His firm provides assistance and guidance to federal and state regulatory agencies and corporations regarding the nature and magnitude of environmental risks and potential remediation strategies. Dr. Rifkin's broad experience includes the communication of health risks and benefits to groups concerned with these issues.

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This timely guide to communication in patient-centered medicine argues for greater clarity in explaining health risks versus benefits of an array of screening tests, procedures, and drug regimens. It reviews the growing trend toward patients' involvement in their own care, particularly in terms of chronic conditions, and details approaches physicians can use to prepare patients (and themselves) for collaborative decision-making based on informed choices and meaningful knowledge. Chapters apply this lens to a wide range of common interventions as contentious as estrogen replacement therapy and antibiotics, and as widely prescribed as the daily aspirin and the annual physical. With this goal in mind, the authors also introduce an innovative decision-making tool that translates risks and benefits into a clear graphic format for fewer chances of miscommunication or misunderstanding.

Among the topics covered:

·         Involving the patient in decision making.

·         BRCT: the Benefit/Risk Characterization Theater.

·         Breast Cancer Screening Mammograms.

·         Prostate Cancer Screening.

·         Statins, cholesterol, and coronary heart disease.

Physicians in family and internal medicine will find Interpreting Health Benefits and Risks: A Practical Guide to Facilitate Doctor- Patient Communication a valuable resource for communicating with patients and new possibilities for working toward their better health and health education.

This book considers several common and important situations where faulty decision-making makes overtreatment a serious risk. Clear, fair, referenced, and useful information is provided. And a powerful intuitive technique is introduced which allows patient and doctor to talk as equals as they work together in the exam room.

As this book is accepted and its ideas and technique are extended, I feel sure that net harm to patients will be curtailed. And what is more, the integrity of the decision-making process will be improved.

Thomas Finucane, MD, Professor of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine