Patient-Physician Communication in the 21st Century.

Overview

In clinical practice, a successful patient-physician partnership can improve the outcome of treatment, especially in cases of chronic disease or cancer. To establish this partnership, physicians must explain treatment options and potential outcomes, but how to best do this when treatment is based on scientific principles and findings that the lay patient will not be familiar with? Here we present a paradigm for patient-physician communication using the immunotherapy of cancer as a model. In this context, we argue for the importance of incorporating techniques in communicating science with patients into the training of early career physicians.