The Permanente journal
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2013
Disclosing medical mistakes: a communication management plan for physicians.
There is a growing consensus that disclosure of medical mistakes is ethically and legally appropriate, but such disclosures are made difficult by medical traditions of concern about medical malpractice suits and by physicians' own emotional reactions. Because the physician may have compelling reasons both to keep the information private and to disclose it to the patient or family, these situations can be conceptualized as privacy dilemmas. These dilemmas may create barriers to effectively addressing the mistake and its consequences. Although a number of interventions exist to address privacy dilemmas that physicians face, current evidence suggests that physicians tend to be slow to adopt the practice of disclosing medical mistakes. ⋯ This Mistake Disclosure Management Plan may help physicians in the early stages after mistake discovery to prepare for the initial disclosure of a medical mistakes. The next step is testing implementation of the procedures suggested.
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2013
Inpatient palliative care consultation: describing patient satisfaction.
This study identified and measured common patterns of patients' positive care experiences during inpatient palliative consultation, and helped better understand how the journey of discovery experienced by both patients and life-care consult teams can be used to improve the quality of care. ⋯ We were encouraged by our findings: the feedback from patients and families showed us we were effective, from their perspective, in helping them shape their treatment journey. It also emphasized where we could have been even more effective in improving our communication.
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2013
Effects and linguistic analysis of written traumatic emotional disclosure in an eating-disordered population.
In previous studies, writing about traumatic life events produced positive physical and psychological outcomes in various populations. Specific linguistic trends, such as increasing insight and cognitive words, have paralleled health benefits. ⋯ Whereas the expected linguistic trends were evident in the disclosure group writings, no correlating health benefits could be found between the disclosure and control groups. Eating-disordered populations, often alexithymic, may have difficulty engaging with the disclosure task and could potentially benefit from guidance in processing traumatic events and their affective states.