title: Difficult Doctors, Difficult Patients: Building Empathy.
abstract: Effective doctor-patient communication facilitates the therapeutic relationship, promotes patient physical and mental health, and improves physician satisfaction. Methods of teaching effective communication use a range of techniques, typically combining didactic instruction with simulated communication encounters and reflective discussion. Rarely are patients and physicians exposed to these instructions as colearners. The evidence for the utility of graphic stories, comics, and cartoons to improve patient comprehension and self-regulation is small but encouraging. The authors describe the use of graphic medicine as a teaching tool for engendering empathy from both the physician and the patient for the other during a shared clinical encounter. This use of educational comics in a colearning experience represents a new use of the medium as a teaching tool.
authors.affiliation: Taubman Health Science Library, University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Patricia F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Taubman Health Science Library, University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wescom
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Institute for Health Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Electronic address: rcarlos@med.umich.edu.
authors.forename: Ruth C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Carlos
keywords: Graphic medicine; bibliotherapy; clinician education; comics in education; communication; consumer health information; doctor-patient relations; informed consent; patient communication; pictorial work