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PART TWO — Interviewing Techniques and Strategies
prescribers.” Thus, patients come to our offices carrying a passport regard-
ing their interactions with previous prescribers in the same sense that they
have a passport regarding their experiences with previous medications. If
a patient has a history of bad encounters with prescribers, it is very easy
for the patient to anticipate that we will fit the same mold. Such a projec-
tion can be devastating to the patient’s future interest in our medication
recommendations. Our next interviewing principle mirrors our previous
one,
Before prescribing a first medication, try to review the patient’s passport
regarding previous prescribers
. The following interviewing technique, which
can be worded with some degree of variations, puts the principle to use:
“How have you felt about your previous doctors, nurse
clinicians, physician assistants or anyone else who has
prescribed medications for you? Did any of them seem
particularly good at helping you to understand your medi-
cations and any concerns you had about side effects or
were any of them particularly bad at doing that?”
or if the patient is a direct transfer
“What are your feelings about your last doctor (use name
of appropriate professional discipline as fits the situation)?”
TIP
7
Exploring the Patient’s Passport on Previous Prescribers
Note that if you are nurse or social worker functioning as a case man-
ager following the patients use of medications and integrated care, the
Patient’s Passport on Previous prescribers is easily modified as, “What are
your feelings about your last case manager.”
Introducing Your Personal Approach to Using
Medications to the Patient
In the initial appointment, there exists no single correct way for a clini-
cian to introduce his or her approach to prescribing medications. Each of
us will vary what we say depending on our own beliefs and the differing
needs of each of our patients. The following approach is not presented as
the “right way” to do it, but it emphasizes that we must all give consider-
able thought to how we do it.
Even more important, if the student (as well as the more experi-
enced prescriber) is to take one thing away from this section, it is the
recognition that discussing one’s personal approach to medication use