Taping Doctors' Conversations Helps Parents of Newborns in Intensive Care

(Page 2)

Koh, who has been using this method for 12 years, advises "buying a tape recorder for anybody going into hospital or for any doctor friends."

One expert thinks the taping method isn't necessarily the best way for patients and family members to get the medical information they need.

"Patients never hear what doctors tell them," said Dr. Charles Safran, an associate clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an expert in patient-doctor communication. "It's not surprising in neonates, where parents need a Ph.D. in intensive care to even remotely understand what's happening to their kid, [that they] don't remember what their doctors tell them."

Safran thinks there's a need for better communication, and the answer may rest with the Internet. Using Web-based, interactive communication allows people to access the information they need as they need it and helps improves communication between doctors and patients and patients' families.

"Web-based intervention, where there is persistence of information, where information, rather than just being given in one large taped session, is made available where and when a parent needs it, has a huge value," Safran said. "When you do that, you can improve parent satisfaction dramatically."

More information

For more on doctor-patient communication, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians (64.233.161.104 ).