EP34: Dr. Robert Smith on the basics of communicating

Have you heard of the NURS mnemonic? Dr. Robert Smith shares how to name, understand, respect, and support emotions in an empathic way. He also gives 3 other tips (silence/pausing, using open-ended questions, asking about emotion) that can help us all in our daily conversations as well as between doctor and patient. Dr. Robert C. Smith, MD, MACP is University Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry Emeritus at Michigan State University. He is an innovator in teaching and researching patient-centered communication as well as primary care mental health since 1985. Dr. Smith has 2 major textbooks being used in medical and nursing schools in the US and internationally, Smith’s Patient-Centered Interviewing: An Evidence-Based Method (4th edition, McGraw Hill, 2018) and Essentials of Psychiatry in Primary Care:  Behavioral Health in the Medical Setting from McGraw-Hill in 2019. He has been interviewed and quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Ladies Home Journal, New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Today Show, and Elle. Dr. Smith has a blog in Psychology Today. He is also writing a trade book for general audiences, provisionally titled, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Dr. Smith also mentions a book by Dr. Robert Pearl, Uncaring. I also am grateful to Dr. Smith for having read my book, which he mentions at the end of this episode and in one of his blog posts.