The ability to communicate effectively with clients, co-workers, colleagues, etc., is an essential tool for anyone in the medial and veterinary field. A common misconception regarding communication skills is that they are innate and thus cannot be learned either someone is a good communicator or not, and that cannot be changed because it is intimately linked with the individual's personality. In fact, communication skills can be taught, learned, and practiced similar to any other clinical skill, suchas performing a thorough physical examination or a surgical procedure.One aspect of effective communication is the exchange of information between two parties as opposed to the majority of information given from one party to another. Characteristics of different relationships and roles for the physician and patient have been described. Traditional relationships between practitioners and patients/clients have been primarily doctor-centered, meaning that the doctor determines what will be discussed and gives information to the patient/client without expecting or encouragingfeedback or questions from him or her. This role is often referred to as the "paternalistic" or "guardian" role for the physician. In contrast, in patient-centered care, the focus of the interaction is the patient—his or her questions, concerns, and opinions, and the physician is acting primarily as a consultant. This role is often referred to as the "consumerist" or "consultant" role. In between these extremes lies relationship-centered care, in which the focus is establishing a joint partnership between the physician and patient/client. This role is often referred to as the "advisor" role for the physician. Each of these roles is associated with a different type of communication pattern between the physician and patient. A biomedical communicationpattern is often used in doctor-centered care. With this pattern the doctor is verbally dominant, the majority of information discussed relates to the medical condition at hand, and little patient input occurs. The consumerist pattern, most often occurring in patient-centered care, is characterized by high patient input and control of the conversation with the physician responding to the patient's many questions. A biopsychosocial or psychosocial pattern is characterized by mutual exchange of information and is associated with relationship-centered care. A recent observational study of communication patterns used by physicians found that the majority used the biomedical (65%) and biopsychosocial (28%) patterns, while a small percentage (8%) used the consumerist pattern. The use of relationship-centered care in the human medical field has been shown to result in increased patient and physician satisfaction, improved patient health outcomes, and reduction in malpractice complaints.As both the medical and veterinary fields have gradually moved to an emphasis on relationship-centered care versus doctor-centered care, patterns of communication used by practitioners, the frequency and impact of using (or lack thereof) effective communication skills, and the outcome of teaching students to use these skills have been evaluated. The majority of research has been performed in the human medical profession; however, multiple studies regarding teaching and using communication skills in theveterinary field have recently been published. In this session we will discuss communication patterns used by veterinarians, client expectations regarding communication, and the outcome of using effective communication skills for veterinarians. Once we've established why proper utilization of these skills is beneficial to the practice of veterinary medicine, we will discuss methods for teaching these skills and the outcome of these methods. We will finish with a brief story to describe how the communication curriculum at Penn Vet has developed over the last few years as a concrete example of one way to build such a program.
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