The Role of Language in Eastern and Western Health Communication

Jack Pun’s book offers the latest research in a variety of health communication settings to highlight the cultural differences between the East and the West. It focuses on the various clinical strands in health communication such as doctor-patient interactions, nurse handover, and cross-disciplinary communication to provide a broad, comprehensive overview of the complexity and heterogeneity of health communication in the Chinese context, which is gradually moving beyond a preference for Western-based models to one that considers the local culture in understanding and interpreting medical encounters. The content highlights the cultural difference between the East and the West and focuses on how traditional Chinese values underpin the nature of clinical communication in various clinical settings and how Chinese patients and practitioners conduct themselves during medical encounters. The book also covers various topics that are unique to Chinese contexts such as the use of traditional Chinese medicine in primary care, and how clinicians translate Western models of communication when working in Chinese contexts with Chinese patients. This volume will appeal to researchers working in health communication in both the East and the West as well as clinicians interested in understanding what makes effective communication with multicultural patient cohorts.