Physician‐Patient Communication in the Emergency Department, Part 1

In 1994, SAEM appointed a task force to review physician-patient communication in the ED and develop a paper on this topic.The task force developed the following objectives for the paper: to develop physician awareness of the factors that affect physicianpatient communication in the ED to describe an approach and practical methods for improving physician-patient communication in the ED to influence the training of medical students and residents regarding the importance of physician-patient communication This paper includes recommendations from the task force.These recommendations are referenced where published literature supports such statements. From the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, Lansing, MI, Task Force on Physicianther the patient nor the physician en-Patient Communication (RK, SR, EB. VT).ters the relationship by choice, as in