Good patient-doctor rapport enhances treatment benefits

[Naveed Yaseen]

Good communication skills in doctors is a well recognised prerequisite, as it not only helps in identifying a patient’s problems more accurately but also enhances his/her compliance with the prescribed regimen.

Healthy communication is essential for an effective patient-doctor relationship and certainly helps in the psychological adjustment of the patient. Doctors should seriously work on enhancing their communication skills, as without having expertise in this area, they could not evolve into true professionals.

These views were expressed by experts during a one-day National Workshop on Communication Skills, organised by Islamabad Medical & Dental College (IM&DC) here Wednesday at its auditorium on the directives of Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PMDC) with the main objective of strengthening communication and presentation skills of the participants, especially young doctors and medical students.

Over 100 doctors and 50 medical students from various hospitals and medical colleges of the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad participated in the workshop where experts delivered lectures on the importance of communication and presentation skills, behaviour, communication styles and feedback, conflict management and interview skills.

Head of Community Medicine at IM&DC Prof Dr Muhammmad Ashraf Chaudhry, also chairman of the workshop organising committee, spoke on the importance of communication and presentation skills for healthcare providers and explained the communication barriers along with providing the participants with guidelines for improving these skills.

He also conducted a five-minute session with a simulated patient to make the participants understand the way to strike an ideal communication between a doctor and his/her patients, and said that doctors with good communication skills could satisfy their patients more effectively.

Dr Ashraf said like other arts, communication apart from being an art is also a learned skill that doctors could acquire through courses, workshops, short lectures, modelling and practicing skills with simulated patients. He briefed the participants about various barriers in communication including the language, pressure of work, poor listening habits, poorly expressed messages, distrust and information overload. “One can improve communication skills through practice and by following guidelines, such as the purpose of communication, setting, follow up, consultations, supporting with actions, use of simple language, getting feedback and by becoming a good listener,” he said. He also briefed the participants on how to improve their presentation skills.

Asst Prof of Physiology at IM&DC Dr Kausar Abid delivered a lecture on Behaviour, Communication Styles and Feedback, and explained the three types of communication style - passive, aggressive and assertive.

Asst Prof of Community Medicine Dr Farwa Rizvi discussed the Communication Mega Messages and Conflict Management. She said the term ‘mega messages’ is a marketing concept of referring to the overall impression you give when communicating with others, while conflict resolution strategies could be collaborative rather than a compromise or a forceful or assertive strategy. She explained the five steps for resolving a conflict as discussing the problem together, clarifying the issues, focusing on needs and goals, understanding each other’s perspective, and breaking the conflict into small steps and the give and take.

Managing Director IM&DC Yasir Niazi highlighted Communication Problems and Interview Skills. At the end, Dean Faculty of Medicine Prof Dr M Naseem Ullah distributed certificates among the participants.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=183660