Communicating with our patients: the goal of bioethics.

Listening, teaching, understanding, exploring, explaining: these are the foundations of a sound patient-physician relationship. From these skills, we can then proceed to discussions on difficult topics such as preferences for end-of-life care. We can share bad news without destroying hope. We can show what makes the medical profession unlike any other. This issue of The Journal addresses the handling of medical errors, the termination of mechanical ventilatory support, ethical problems in managed care, and confidentiality issues in the computer era. Guidelines for institutional ethics committees also are presented. These are only a sampling of topics that cut to the heart of bioethics, patient communication, and contemporary medical practice. The more that we study such issues, the more we understand the contributions of medical ethics to medical practice, and the better we serve our patients.