BMJ  2004;328:1318 (29 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7451.1318

Letter

Doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect

Paper was muddled

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The discussion section of the paper by Burkitt-Wright et al on doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect in breast cancer is extraordinarily muddled.¹ The first paragraph seems to imply that communication style is not of particular concern to patients but then goes on to emphasise the importance of trust, empathy, and autonomy—all of which depend on effective communication.

After asserting that their analysis is more sensitive to patients' needs than everyone else's, the authors make several sweeping and paternalistic generalisations about patients, referring the reader to a set of equally paternalistic, and at times positively misleading, communication rules (boxes 1-3). They even imply that fostering blind faith is more desirable than imparting honest information.

In the sixth paragraph, the most confusing of all, they say that giving patients "the option" (what option?) is better than giving them choice (what on earth do they mean?), but they propose . . . [Full text of this article]

Picker Institute Europe, Oxford OX1 1RX angela.coulter@pickereurope.ac.uk

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Relevant Article

Doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect in breast cancer: qualitative study

Emma Burkitt Wright, Christopher Holcombe, and Peter Salmon
BMJ 2004 328: 864. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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• Dutt-Gupta, J., Bown, T., Cyna, A. M. (2007). Effect of communication on pain during intravenous cannulation: a randomized controlled trial. Br J Anaesth 99: 871-875 [Abstract] [Full text]  

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