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PubMed · 16735529

Thoughts on communication.

Paul R Gordon
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Abstract

Living without the ability to communicate is humbling. Time spent on a sabbatical in Florence, Italy, taught me that my outgoing manner, my interactional skills, and my ability to establish rapport, all personality traits and skills that I thought would overcome my inadequacies as a communicator in Italian are not immutable. I gained some understanding of what our nonnative English-speaking patients might feel. I learned the following lessons: (1) be cautious-what appears to be a lack of interest may be a lack of understanding; (2) our perceptions of aptitude may be mistaken if based on patients' facial expressions and body language; (3) we should not adjust our words and speed of speech just because we think a patient cannot understand what we are saying; and (4) language is an amazingly powerful tool-the inability to communicate transforms us.

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CommunicationEducation, MedicalHumansInterpersonal RelationsLanguagePhysician-Patient RelationsJournal Article

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Paul R Gordon. Thoughts on communication.. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.551

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