Some Way to Go
It was a beautiful journey to Barrow-in-Furness yesterday - cold and crisp and sunny: here's one of the views on the way.
As you may know by now, I work part-time to help to train doctors, nurses and other health care professionals in Communication Skills. It's a mandatory part of all doctors' training now, and this is very much a Good Thing.
My cousin in Barrow told me his story. He had been taken into hospital for an emergency operation. Afterwards, he was awaiting the results of what they'd found out during the operation. He didn't know what was wrong with him.
Before the surgeon had spoken to him, a nurse arrived at his bedside and explained that she was from the Palliative Care team. She had been told that my cousin had already had the test results. The Palliative Care team were there, she explained kindly, to help patients with illnesses such as his cancer, and particularly to help patients with terminal illnesses, such as he has.
And this, dear reader, is how he found out his diagnosis.
The surgeon, when questioned about why he had not told my cousin the previous day, apparently said,
"But I told him yesterday." Then he thought for a while and said,
"Aaah - - well, I meant to - - but I forgot."
A number of times during my work with medical students - over more than twenty years - I have come across a student who has had very poor communication skills, and has said that this doesn't matter, because he or she wanted to become a surgeon.
May I suggest that the above story shows that this idea is entirely WRONG?
It's clear we've some way to go with the Communication Skills.
As you may know by now, I work part-time to help to train doctors, nurses and other health care professionals in Communication Skills. It's a mandatory part of all doctors' training now, and this is very much a Good Thing.My cousin in Barrow told me his story. He had been taken into hospital for an emergency operation. Afterwards, he was awaiting the results of what they'd found out during the operation. He didn't know what was wrong with him.
Before the surgeon had spoken to him, a nurse arrived at his bedside and explained that she was from the Palliative Care team. She had been told that my cousin had already had the test results. The Palliative Care team were there, she explained kindly, to help patients with illnesses such as his cancer, and particularly to help patients with terminal illnesses, such as he has.
And this, dear reader, is how he found out his diagnosis.
The surgeon, when questioned about why he had not told my cousin the previous day, apparently said,
"But I told him yesterday." Then he thought for a while and said,
"Aaah - - well, I meant to - - but I forgot."
A number of times during my work with medical students - over more than twenty years - I have come across a student who has had very poor communication skills, and has said that this doesn't matter, because he or she wanted to become a surgeon.
May I suggest that the above story shows that this idea is entirely WRONG?
It's clear we've some way to go with the Communication Skills.
posted by Daphne at 9:35 pm
4 Comments:
Cold, crisp and sunny is the best weather. And it really is cold, but I so much prefer that to the rain we had in previous weeks.
Nice photo. I've only been to Barrow once and that was to visit a uni friend, was a long time ago.
Yeh, Dr's communication skills can be shocking; important job you do. Awful for your cousin that it came out that way.
What an awful way to find out! Poor Nurse, too - I suspect she knows where the communication issues lie.
Beautiful crispy photo... I have never been to Barrow - the closest I have come is a Uni roommate of The Dude's, (from Barrow) who spoke very quickly and was a complete letch, and I never had the first clue what sort of filth he was saying to me...
When I was rushed into A&E with chest pains in 2001 the doctor looked at the charts, turned round and said: "You have heart attack." Then turned on his heel and walked off. Happily, he was wrong.
Hope you enjoy your trip.
Thank you all for your comments. People think of Barrow - if they think of it at all - as a rather grim Victorian industrial town, but there's a lot more to it than that.
As for the breaking-bad-news issue - there is a correct way to do it which all medics are taught now - - it's just a shame that some of them don't remember it, or seem to think it's important!
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