> it's
> funny, my verbal communcation is often mono-syllabic, yet my patients seem
> to believe me; I can't explain that...
> Well, I'm not sure you can train people to be good communicators, they
> either are or they're not ... secret is to select
> students who are already good communicators, then you won't have to waste
> time "training" them to be themselves ... If they haven't,
> then your selection is at fault, not your training.
I think you are missing a few important points here Adrian.
(1) It's not that the patients believe your syllabically depleted spiel -
they just figure that pointing out that disbelief to a monosylab is
pointless. (They can always go to see their GP the next day to have their
'ideas, concerns and expectations' explored fully).
(2) Litigation risk has nothing to do with medical knowledge or skill - it's
poor communication that gets you sued. So, far better to be a charismatic
moron than a monosyllabic genius.
(3) Little of what we do makes any difference to patient's morbidity and
mortality, and the little that does can usually be taught to a lobotomised
monkey on a 3 day didactic course. So little point in having those pesky
science subjects cluttering up the curriculum.
(4) There is little point in the SHOs knowing that the patient's limb pain
can be relieved by elevation and analgesia if they are unable to impart that
information to the cerebrally challenged punter.
(5) There is nothing wrong with medical student selection. They arrive at
medical school with excellent communication skills, but these are removed
during training to produce the brigade of cloned, fact-filled, sociopaths
that eventually make their way to senior positions in the Royal Colleges.
I certainly can barely remember any of what I was taught at medical school,
but find that soothing words and a bit of handholding means the patients
almost never notice.
--
Robbie Coull
email: [log in to unmask] website: http://www.coull.net
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