The notion of consent which rose to the forefront in biomedical ethics as an attempt to safeguard patients' autonomy, is relatively new. The notion itself requires qualification, for it precludes neither duress nor ignorance. More seriously, I argue here that consent is redundant except in situations where paternalism prevails. Paradoxically, these are the very situations where it may be diffic...

Having good communication skills is essential for doctors to establish good doctor patient relationship. Not surprisingly, many undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training programmes have made the attainment of good communication skills a core requirement. With the increase in demand from patients who value doctors who are patient centred (who spend time and listen to them), t...

In the course of his 1980 Reith Lectures on medical ethics, Ian Kennedy discussed the consumer-provider model as the means by which the patient-physician relationship might be regulated, with the patient as consumer having a major role in establishing, monitoring, and enforcing standards of medical practice. Little, a psychiatrist, agrees that such consumer involvement would help to redress th...

E-mail correspondence between psychiatrists and patients raises numerous legal concerns with respect to the ethics of the doctor-patient relationship. Case law has shown that a doctor-patient relationship may be established in the absence of face-to-face contact. Despite this, a surprisingly high number of physicians respond to unsolicited e-mails, some even going so far as to suggest diagnoses...

The first consultation with a patient is the beginning of a doctor-patient relationship. It is thus of major importance to conduct this in a correct and proper way. Consulting with a patient is a complicated skill that is gradually learned during medical training and perfected when one grows into one’s role as a doctor. The importance of an adequate consultation constitutes a strong argument to...

This prospective study investigated the relationship between chaplain visits and patient satisfaction, as measured by Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) and Press Ganey surveys from 8,978 patients who had been discharged from a tertiary care hospital. Controlling for patients' age, gender, race, ethnicity, language, education, faith, general health status,...

BACKGROUND This review's goal was to determine how differences between physicians and patients in race, ethnicity and language influence the quality of the physician-patient relationship. METHODS We performed a literature review to assess existing evidence for ethnic and racial disparities in the quality of doctor-patient communication and the doctor-patient relationship. RESULTS We found c...