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Ailyn Agonia
DOHA
ALL healthcare professionals whether doctors, nurses or pharmacists need to be skilled communicators in order to optimise patients' outcomes, according to Professor Srikant Sarangi, director of Danish Institute of Humanities and Medicine (DIHM) at Aalborg University, Denmark.
Sarangi, who visited Doha recently to conduct a workshop at the Qatar University College of Medicine (QU-CMED), underscored the benefits of promoting more effective doctor-patient communication trajectories in hospitals and clinics.
The expert, who addressed healthcare professionals and researchers from several colleges within QU, Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar during his first visit in Doha, said focusing on context-specific communication resources in clinical and hospital settings in the country must be a priority given the multi-cultural, cosmopolitan society in Qatar.
"In many contemporary societies, the complexly mediated healthcare delivery system is characterised by the linguistic and cultural diversities of not only patients and their families but also of healthcare professionals. Such diversities, however, are not reciprocated by adequate communicative resources within the healthcare sector, thus resulting in instances of communicative vulnerability", the health communication expert told Qatar Tribune in an interview.
He continued,"By and large, communication remains an under-utilised human resource in the healthcare sector when talking to patients/carers as well as when interacting with fellow professionals. The overall increase in adverse events is, directly or indirectly, caused by poor communication. Nowadays everyone is 'health literate' with easy access to medical information via internet.
"Gone are the days when patients came to their doctors with very little medical knowledge and thus trusted their 'doctors' orders' and complied with whatever treatment was suggested."
He added,"We now live in a time when most patients, especially those with chronic conditions, visit their doctors armed with encyclopaedic information about their condition but such self-acquired information may either be irrelevant or inadequate.
"The responsibility then lies with healthcare professionals to make widely accessible medical information relevant to the patient's current condition something the so-called 'informed patients' themselves may be unable to do. Such a scenario poses a new communication challenge for the healthcare professionals as knowledge experts."
It is through paying closer attention to communication that doctors can work out which patient will be compliant with their advice and who might need more convincing. Sarangi stressed that the doctor's task is not only to make a diagnosis about disease but also to diagnose the kind of patient who is sitting in front of them based on patterns of communication knowing more about the patients' psychological and attitudinal profile is a prerequisite for effective healthcare delivery.
"More time does not mean better communication. Likewise, having less patients does not become an advantage. Even by spending less time with more patients you can be effective if you have understanding, trust, authority and expertise as well as if the patient believes that the expert (doctor) is doing things for their benefit," said Sarangi.
While in Doha, Sarangi had a tutorial session with the medical students who are currently in their second year.
He was impressed with the medical curriculum which is targeted at broadening students' experience of medicine beyond the classroom setting.
He also lauded the initiatives of QU-CMED in giving recognition to communicative practices, including barriers and breakdowns, in local hospitals and clinics to establish a baseline before embarking on research-cum-training programmes for today's and tomorrow's healthcare professionals.
According to the expert, preparing the medical students to become both good doctors and good communicators is an innovative and refreshing approach that would go a long way towards preventing and repairing the existing communication environment in hospitals and clinics in the country.
"Communication skills and consultation skills are not two different entities, and neither skill should be taken for granted. Instead we need to recognise the context-specificity and uniqueness of each healthcare encounter. Evidence-based clinical practice will be lacking unless it is accompanied by it corollary, skilled communication," said Sarangi.
