Please Don't Break My Other Leg!: A Guide to Empathising with Patients

by Valerie Mirvis, Bernard Valman

Overview

Please Don't Break My Other Leg! is a guide to improving communication between health care professionals and patients. Valerie Mirvis breathes new life into the teaching of empathic skills by writing in an engaging and moving style and by including genuine case histories, controversial scientific research, imagery, literary quotations and Rikki Marr's specially commissioned illustrations. Based on more than 500 interviews, this book is profound enough to enhance the knowledge of professionals with considerable experience, while at the same time appealing to general members of the public with little or no experience of visiting the sick.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761821199
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	12/13/2001
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 8.88(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Valerie Mirvis is a Social Worker in Jewish Care's North West London Area Team. She has received the rare honor of becoming the first person without medical qualifications to be elected to the Council of the London Jewish Medical Society.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Preface Chapter 3 Acknowledgments Chapter 4 The Mirror and the Pinhole Chapter 5 It Takes Two to Tango Chapter 6 Nature and/or Nurture? Chapter 7 Nurture and Know-how Chapter 8 Please Don't Break My Other Leg! Chapter 9 Do We Have the Green Light? Chapter 10 Bedside Manners Chapter 11 Einstein's Other Theory of Relativity Chapter 12 Play it by Ear Chapter 13 Body Language Chapter 14 I Cannot See for Looking Chapter 15 Hearing Aid Chapter 16 Funny Ha Ha Chapter 17 Direct Your Heart to Heaven Chapter 18 The Pen is Mightier than the Sword Chapter 19 The Reluctant Visitor Chapter 20 Puppet on a String Chapter 21 A Spoonful of Advice Chapter 22 Empathic Patients Chapter 23 Notes Chapter 24 About the Author and Illustrator

Editorial Reviews

Her book explores the relationship between health professionals, patients and their visitors, and looks at factors that can enhance and hinder empathy, providing useful examples that could form the basis for workshops on communication skills.. .. This book will be particularly interesting to clinical nurses.

Nursing Times

.. . the book is aimed at helping healthcare professionals, such as hospital consultants, to be more sensitive to the feelings of their patients. But it is also invaluable to anyone who encounters someone who is bereaved, or in any way sick, frail, orvulnerable.

The Jewish Chronicle [UK]

The excellent style leads the reader smoothly through the book...All in all it is an enjoyable book, which certainly has to be read by professionals who regularly have to deal with very ill patients.

Progress In Palliative Care

Her book explores the relationship between health professionals, patients and their visitors, and looks at factors that can enhance and hinder empathy, providing useful examples that could form the basis for workshops on communication skills. . . . This book will be particularly interesting to clinical nurses.--Nursing Times

The excellent style leads the reader smoothly through the book...All in all it is an enjoyable book, which certainly has to be read by professionals who regularly have to deal with very ill patients.--Progress In Palliative Care

. . . the book is aimed at helping healthcare professionals, such as hospital consultants, to be more sensitive to the feelings of their patients. But it is also invaluable to anyone who encounters someone who is bereaved, or in any way sick, frail, or vulnerable.--The Jewish Chronicle, UK

From the Publisher

. . . the book is aimed at helping healthcare professionals, such as hospital consultants, to be more sensitive to the feelings of their patients. But it is also invaluable to anyone who encounters someone who is bereaved, or in any way sick, frail, or vulnerable.

UK The Jewish Chronicle

The title refers to the metaphoric broken leg that illness confers. Empathetic skills in the patient-healthcare professional/visitor relationship can be taught according to this social worker. Mirvis examines such beside manner topics as empathy vs. sympathy, the nature-nurture debate over empathy, and emotions' effects on health. Her message is reinforced by case examples of exceptional patients and incisive illustrations. The book is not indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)