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Thoughts on Communication

Department of Family & Community Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Paul R. Gordon, MD, MPH, University of Arizona, AHSC PO Box 24-5113, Tucson, AZ 85724-5113, pgordon{at}u.arizona.edu

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.

Key Words: Communication • physician-patient relations • education

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