engleski

Communication skills, rethinking efficiency: from intuitive to scientific

In this presentation, a short overview regarding medical practitioners’ communication skills will be given. Last few decades have been marked with substantial increase in medical coverage, exponential advance in understanding of diseases causes, trajectories and outcomes, as well as treatments availability and success. However, public satisfaction with medical care seems to be on a downward trajectory. How come that increase in medical practitioners' level of expertise and treatment outcomes are not accompanied by the increase in patient satisfaction? Excessive patient dissatisfaction, as assumed, stems not from the quality of the medical care per se but the lack of content specific, forensic-like, medical practitioners’ communication skills. Inadequate communication patterns hinder the doctor patient relationship formation, having negative impact on patients’ disclosure, resulting in lack of: relevant information acquisition ; prescribed treatment adherence ; and general trust in medical system. One of the perpetuating factors is certainly the widespread implicit misbelief that fact that we communicate form the moment we are born, makes us communication experts by automatism. With communication being the very essence of successful clinical practice, its positioning near the core of the professional self-esteem, makes it less probable for one to be open to critical approach towards one’s communication skills. On the other hand, growing body of knowledge inform s us of the most effective communication and inquiry algorithms, clearly demonstrating that they can be learned and that they fall into domain of apparatus that can be consciously used and modified in order to obtain the present goal. Therefore, possibilities of communication s kills educations, especially evidence-based and well supported by the most recent advances in cognitive, clinical and forensic psychology will be discussed, by giving real-life examples, as a tool that can become quite powerful in clinical setting.

communication skills ; efficiency ; medicine

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