A short sharing on doctor-patient communication to First year medical students in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, to be supplemented with anecdotal accounts.

1. Doctor-Patient
Communication
Prof Dr. Chew Keng Sheng
Faculty of medicine and health sciences,
UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK

2. Think!

4. Avoid jargons

5. 1.
Always keep the
patient/family members
informed
“Ignorance breeds fear.
Fear breeds hate.
Hate breeds violence.”

6. Patients are
often in
vulnerable
position

7. 80%Of medical students failed to
introduce themselves adequately
and explain their intentions in a
study involving 50 students
(Maguire & Rutter, 1976)

8. Do we see our patients as
numbers or “A CASE of..”?
Do we label patients and
put them as in “box”?

9. 2. Listen to the
patient
“The biggest problem in
communication is we do not listen
to understand.
We listen to reply”
- Stephen R. Covey

11. Patients often have more
than one complaint.
The mean number of
concerns patients have
range from 1.2 – 3.9 in both
new and return visits.

12. ×Levinson et al (2000) - patients often
gave verbal and non-verbal cues
throughout the interview but physicians
only responded positively to the cues in
38% of surgery and 21% in primary care

13. ×Rogers and Todd (2000) – cancer
specialists preferentially listened for and
responded to certain disease cues over
others

14. 18 secIs all it takes on average before a doctor interrupt the
patient (Beckman & Frankel, 1984)
54%Of patients’ complaints were not addressed in clinical
encounters (Stewart et al, 1979)
6 minIs all it takes on average to reach a diagnosis (Norman
2009)

15. History from patients contributes 60 –
80% of the data for diagnosis
(Hampton et al, 1975; Sandler 1980; Kassirer 1983;
Peterson et al, 1992)

16. × S = Setting: privacy, family
× P = Perception: what they know, expectations
× I = Information
× K = Knowledge
× E = Empathy
× S = Summary

17. Big
Summary: What have you learned
today?

18. THANKS!An y quest i on s?
You can find me at kschew@unimas.my