Diagnosing a child with borderline signs of Asperger disorder can be a gateway to needed interventions and services and also a label that stigmatizes or influences the child’s development.
The participatory decision-making model for patient-physician relationships is the best approach for addressing the individual family-related and social influences that stress that relationship.
Pairing medical students with chronically ill community volunteers for 2 years helps those students gain appreciation for the experience of illness, develop self-reflection and perspective-taking, and learn to communicate with people who may be quite unlike them.