Finding meaning in the consultation: introducing the hermeneutic window

Extract from the Introduction:

The ability to offer individualised care to patients remains a key component of general practice. This is more important now than ever, given that the care we provide as GPs is likely to involve less face-to-face contact even once the threat of COVID-19 has passed. Many consultation frameworks address only generic skills and largely ignore the extent to which the clinician is able to establish a human connection, to understand what an illness means to their patient and to help them navigate through it, particularly when there is uncertainty and complexity within the consultation. This person-centred approach is the bedrock upon which general practice was founded and deserves further analysis. In this article, we introduce a new four-domain model to describe the skills and approaches needed by clinicians in order to encourage consultations that are individualised and create meaning for both patient and clinician.

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