Patient-Centred Medicine in Transition

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Alan Bleakley

   Pages 1-18

3. Communication in Medicine: Democracy and Its Discontents

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Communication Hypocompetence: An Iatrogenic Epidemic

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 21-29

   3. Democracy in Medicine

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 31-45

   4. Patient-Centredness Without a Centre

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 47-56

   5. How Physicians Think Can Be Judged from How They Listen and Speak

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 57-65

   6. A New Wave of Patient-Centredness

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 67-78

   7. Models of Patient-Centred Care

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 79-94

   8. What Is Meant by ‘Empathy’?

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 95-109

   9. Gender Matters in Medical Education

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 111-126

4. Deep Theorizing in Communication in Medicine: Relationships Between Team Process and Practitioner Identity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127

      PDF

   2. Working and Learning in ‘Teams’ in a New Era of Health-Care

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 129-138

   3. Theorizing Team Process Through Cultural–Historical Activity Theory (CHAT): Networking and Knotworking

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 139-147

   4. Theorizing Team Process Through a Foucauldian Perspective: Gaining a Voice in Team Activity at the Clinical Coalface

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 149-162

   5. Theorizing Team Process Through Actor-Network-Theory (ANT): Communication Practice as a Theory in Action

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 163-182

   6. Theorizing Team Process Through Deleuzian Rhizomatics: Becoming a Medical Professional in Nomadic Teams

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 183-204

   7. Team Process and Complexity Theory: Blunting Occam’s Razor

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 205-216

   8. Building a Collaborative Community of Practice in Medical Education Research

      • Alan Bleakley

      Pages 217-229

5. A Brief but Provocative Conclusion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 231-231

      PDF

This book challenges functional models for more aesthetic and ethical models, where communication is grounded in values systems of cultures. Here, communication is treated as a distributed phenomenon involving networks of persons, activities and artifacts, and extends beyond doctor-patient relationships to working in and across teams around patients. The purpose of the book is to stimulate thinking about how patient care and safety may be improved through a focus upon the ‘non-technical’ work of doctors – interpersonal communication, teamwork and situation awareness in teams. The focus is then not on the personality of the doctor, but on the dynamics of relationships which form doctors’ multiple identities.

• Communication and postiive patient healthhcare outcomes
• Communication skills and medical education
• Doctor identities and communication skills
• Doctor patient communication
• Doctor patient relationship
• Interpersonal communication and medical education

From the book reviews:

Selected as “Highly Commended” at BMA Medical Book Awards for 2014.

“‘This book usefully brings together the history, development and important tenets of patient-centred medicine, making it an almost unique reference for this important area of change in how medicine is delivered. … brings together a wealth of evidence and information that may well be pivotal in both changing the way we educate our future health professionals, particularly doctors, but also deliver healthcare.’” (BMA Medical Book Awards, September, 2014)

“The book draws on psychology, sociology, the arts, humanities, feminism, linguistics and philosophy. … This is a book aimed mainly at the serious student of communication – gold dust if you are doing a PhD or a master’s in professional practice. It would also sit well on the shelf of the front line clinician seeking to understand the numerous situations in clinical practice that are bedevilled by conflict, crossed wires, unvoiced anxieties and other communication failures.” (Trish Greenhalgh, Nursing Standard, Vol. 29 (20), January, 2015)

• and Dentistry, Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine, Cornwall, United Kingdom

  Alan Bleakley

Alan Bleakley is Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities at Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine, UK, recently formed from the dissolution of Peninsula Medical School, where he was Deputy Director of the Institute of Clinical Education, internationally recognized as a leading medical education academic and research centre. He initially studied zoology and physiology and biochemistry, but switched to psychology, where his interests in brain science soon faded to be replaced by a passion for a more arts and humanities based psychology. He trained as a psychotherapist, obtaining a DPhil from Sussex University, and practiced for over 25 years, also running qualifying courses in psychotherapy for the University of Exeter, and education in communication for GPs and other health practitioners. He also taught psychodynamic therapies on a doctoral qualifying course for clinical psychologists also at the University of Exeter. Alan came into medical education some years ago, where he has become a leading international figure, especially in the field of theory.             

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