Doctors Talking with Patients/Patients Talking with Doctors: Improving Communication in Medical Visits

Verbal and non-verbal exchanges during medical visits are seen by Roter and Hall as having highly significant impacts on the doctor-patient relationship and the efficacy of health care. The effectiveness, indeed the appropriateness, of medical care is itself impacted by the social and psychological processes involved as doctor and patient meet. Roter and Hall analyze how a number of important factors can tend to condition both doctors and patients to roles that then can become barriers to a positive relationship. They detail principles and approaches that will improve the medical visit experience for both doctor and patient.

DEBRA L. ROTER is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches in the School of Hygiene and Public Health.

JUDITH A. HALL is Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University.