Doctor/Patient Communication for Dummies

Abstract

Please don’t interpret the title of this editorial as a sleight. Rather, it reflects my admiration for and indebtedness to the books “for Dummies,” which have allowed me a certain degree of success in using a computer, not to mention spending endless hours with Photoshop. In fact, with the acquisition of each new electronics-related activity, I immediately bypass the official handbooks in favor of the much more user-friendly “Dummies” books on each relevant subject. I only wish I could enlighten my readers half as clearly and cleverly as the writers of “Dummies.” Aside from my wish to honor these books, a more apt title for the editorial might have been “The Best and the Worst about 21st Century Patient Communications.”