TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION   

International Angiology 2002 March;21(1):99-102

Copyright © 2003 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

The importance of communication between physicians and patients. Special considerations in the era of endovascular therapy

Mavroforou A., Giannoukas A. D., Katsamouris A., Michalodimitrakis E.

From the Department of Forensic Sciences and the * Division of Vascular Surgery, University of Crete Medical School, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Most of the law­suits in med­i­cal prac­tice are the ­result of inad­e­quate com­mu­ni­ca­tion ­between doc­tors and ­patients and lit­i­ga­tion has very lit­tle to do with ­errors. In the era of the tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and the imple­men­ta­tion of new tech­niques such as endo­vas­cu­lar ther­a­py, good com­mu­ni­ca­tion ­between phy­si­cians and ­patients is essen­tial. The pur­pose of this ­review is to elic­it impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tions on chal­leng­ing ­issues relat­ing to the art of com­mu­ni­ca­tion ­between phy­si­cians and ­patients and to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on what the vas­cu­lar sur­geon or inter­ven­tion­al­ist ­should bear in mind in obtain­ing an ade­quate ­informed con­sent from the ­patients.