A TIME TO LISTEN

As methods of health care delivery, and advances in technology change our lives and practices, an essential element of personal and professi onal relationships has become neglected. We have stopped listening to each other, to our patients, and to ourselves; we have lost the art of communication. The essential aspects of optimal communication and the power of nonverbal signals are reviewed. Only by recognizing the impo rtance of communication in surgical education, practice, and in fact i n all aspects of daily life, will this encroaching societal deafness b e rebuffed. (C) 1997 by Excerpta Medica, Inc.