Medical Talk Expert Gives Short Course: Advice for Patients, Doctors and Other Medical Professionals

A professor visiting her aunt on her way to a conference being held at Champaign-Urbana was one of two speakers at Crystal Lake Kiwanis this Wednesday at the Colonial Café.

She was on the way to the International Qualitative Congress and her name is Laura L. Ellingson. Her aunt is Janice Prunier-King, Executive Director of McHenry County’s Options and Advocacy.

Dr. Ellingson is Assistant Professor in Santa Clara University’s Department of Communication and her specialty is communication between patient and medical providers and among medical providers themselves.

She surely had some good advice.

To patients, who get on the average 11 minutes to see their doctors in an increasingly managed health care system, she advised getting right to the point about why they are there.

She strongly advised against what she called “doorknob disclosures.”

What’s that?

It’s waiting until the doctor has his or her hand on the doorknob before revealing the real reason for one’s visit.

Dr. Ellingson also advised arriving with a written list of one’s prescriptions, dosages and symptoms. That helps maximize the value of the visit, she says.

She also said patients should tell the truth to their physicians.

Why would she make such a common sense suggestion?

“96% of patients report lying to their physicians,” she revealed.

Her advice to doctors was to treat patients more like people.

The reason?

“We don’t sue poor doctors.

“We sue poor communicators. When I talk to doctors it’s nice to have this.”

After this malpractice motivation, she delivers the main message:

”You have to actually treat them like people.

Dr. Ellingson’s research has concentrated on interdisplinary clinics and dialysis treatment centers. She specializes in how people in different disciplines interact.

She explained that doctors are no longer the primary care providers, “if we ever were working in a system when physicians were the primary care givers.”

“Communication among health care providers is critical,” said the professor, who is trying to figure “out how they could best interact.”

“The day of Marcus Welby are over.” Other medical providers, such as dietitians, offer better advice about “what you should eat” than doctors.

She also advised that patients should not assume that medical providers talk to each other. Specialists may only send a note to one’s primary care physician and that doctor may not have read it before he or she sees you.

Dr. Ellingson was high on nurse practitioners, especially for people with chronic and on-going situations.

They “actually take more time talking to their patients than their doctors,” she said.

Kiwanis in Crystal Lake meets the first and third Wednesday of each month from noon to one.

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Dr. Laura L. Ellingson of Santa Clara University in California is the woman featured in the two photographs with two women in them. In the second one she is laughing. It must be fun to take her classes. The other is her aunt, Janice Prunier-King. Prunier-King is also seen introducing her neice.


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