Writing to our patients

The information we need to impart to our patients is often complicated and difficult for them to understand. Details concerning their medical disorder and its management need to be concise, accurate, easily understood, and remembered.

Eye care services are now largely outpatient based and in many countries consultations are necessarily brief, with limited time for satisfactory communication, sometimes resulting in the omission of important information.1 From the patient’s point of view an outpatient appointment can provoke considerable anxiety and it is common for patients to leave a consultation without remembering what was discussed.2 …