Exploring and Teaching Healthcare Communication

This book brings together frontline clinicians from diverse healthcare fields—including Medicine, Intensive Care, Neurology, Geriatrics, Oncology, Palliative Care, Nursing, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine—to share their insights, experiences, and strategies for effective clinical communication. Drawing on research and real-world practices, the author provides evidence-based and practical recommendations for teaching, studying, and implementing effective communication in healthcare. Special attention is given to the role of cultural expectations, particularly in bilingual and multicultural medical contexts. Using Hong Kong as a case study, the book explores its unique integration of Western and Chinese values to offer a comparative perspective applicable to other healthcare settings worldwide. It argues for the development of a culturally appropriate communication model, informed by clinicians’ insights, to enhance therapeutic relationships and ensure patient safety. This book is an essential resource for medical educators, healthcare professionals, doctors and nurses in training, medical students, health communication researchers, and scholars in applied linguistics and related fields.

Jack Pun is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a founding member of the Institute for Communication in Healthcare at the Australian National University. His research examines the effectiveness of health communication and its impact on patient satisfaction across diverse clinical settings, including emergency care, nursing handovers, and traditional Chinese medicine. He is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research in Science & Technological Education and the author of The Role of Language in Eastern and Western Health Communication.