Effective Doctor-Patient Communication

The different communication styles used by female and male doctors are one of the main important factors in creating a satisfactory experience for patients. Since that is true, it is important to understand why effective communication may lead to better or worse health outcomes. Moira (1995) determined that patient health care outcomes can be improved with adequate physician-patient communication and that effective communication between practitioners and their patients, exerts a positive influence on emotional health, symptom resolution, functional and physiologic status, as well as pain control. Similarly, Street et al. (2008) explained why effective communication may lead to better or worse health outcomes, while explaining the different

According to a study conducted by CRICO Strategies (2015) in which they reviewed over 23,000 medical malpractice lawsuits and claims where patients suffered some form of harm, miscommunication between practitioners and patients caused the healthcare system to lose $1.7 billion, and the death of 1,744 patients in 2015. One of the common doctor-to-patient miscommunication problems involved unsympathetic responses to a patient’s complaint which, according to previous research seem to be more frequent among male physicians. Therefore, miscommunication in the medical field extends beyond the short term effects they can have on patients, they ultimately can cause the deaths of copious amounts of patients and even have a great economic significance on the healthcare system

(2004) conducted a study at a large university hospital in Korea, where 550 outpatients were interviewed with a questionnaire trying to determine the relationship(s) of physician empathy and how it was related with patient satisfaction and compliance. Their results suggest that patient-perceived physician empathy significantly influenced patient satisfaction and compliance. Patients perceive empathy through two lenses— cognitive and affective. The cognitive aspect of physician empathy is defined as the doctor’s ability to take the patient’s point of view and the ability to effectively communicate this perspective back to them. The affective aspect of doctor empathy is defined as the practitioner's ability to respond and improve their patients’ emotional state. This means that patients’ satisfaction is linked to the way that their physicians react while communicating with them. According to previous research, female practitioners are better communicators, are more sympathetic to their patients, and allow their patients to tell their story more often than their male colleagues. Female doctors’ empathy towards their patients could then help explain why patients report to have more satisfactory medical