One medical educator wrote me in response to the podcast, “How a small change in what you say can improve your patient education.” She thanked me for giving a ‘name’ to the problem that is a deficit perspective. She pointed out the tension between approaching a patient focused on the problem, and approaching a patient […]
Reflective Practice
Health communication has all the pitfalls of everyday communication
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could magically leave our awkwardness, doubt, or frustration at the door when we have to communicate in a professional capacity? In the summer of 2016, I was in the audience when Marcella Nunez-Smith, of Yale’s School of Medicine, gave a keynote address to a conference of health communication researchers. In […]
“I don’t want to unintentionally offend people”
I was coaching a physician on communication, and at one point our conversation took an interesting turn. We had been talking about interprofessional communication, when the physician told me she was worried about offending people unintentionally. At first, I thought she was talking about her colleagues. But she also gave some examples of interactions with […]
4 Questions to ask about mentoring in the health professions
About a year and a half ago, I began a series of conversations with an MD in Academic Medicine, who was interested in restarting the mentoring program at her medical center. She knew it would be a complex and significant undertaking. One ‘problem’ is the massive body of research on mentoring in the professions. Also, […]
12 Reflective practice prompts for health professionals
[This post available as a podcast episode here.] I have heard “reflective practice” mentioned a few times, in the years I have been talking with physicians, medical educators, and public health professionals. Dr. Tasha Wyatt, of the Educational Innovation Institute at the Medical College of Georgia, explained to me: “Physicians are trained–very much so–to gather […]
Two things to remember before you educate your next patient
Today brings a close to a series I started a few months back, called 5 steps to improve your patient education. I promised to take a closer look at each of those 5 steps. So far I’ve written about eliciting patient background knowledge; how you handle your medical knowledge; being clear about your goals for […]