Importance Of Effective Patient Doctor Communication example essay topic

Miracle Walker Interpersonal COM. Journal Nonverbal communication plays an important role in our interaction with others. Nonverbal communication includes facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, eye contact, spatial arrangements, patterns of touch, expressive movement, and other nonverbal acts. These nonverbal acts are used to accomplish a number of our interpersonal goals as communicators. This concept of nonverbal communication played an important role in my recent visit to the emergancy room. I arrived at University hospital at around 2 am on Sunday morning, feeling weak, nauseous, dizzy, and like my brain was exploding from the inside.

The nurse gestured for me to sit down, I noticed her body language and complied. She greeted me with a warm smile, slightly leaning forward, while gathering information about the nature of my emergancy. Her smile helped me feel a little more at ease in the hostile environment of the hospital. Her forward lean and open posture let me know that she was interested in what I had to say and was trying to help. I was positioned in a wheelchair and then rolled into a small private room. The gurney I was transferred to was cold and rigid to the touch.

The metallic, aseptic smell lingering in the chilly air hung in my nose; constantly reminding me of where I was. When the doctor arrived, he greeted me with a handshake, a warm smile, and kept eye contact with me while speaking. All of these nonverbal cues conveyed to me that he was paying attention and not being distracted by the chart in his hands or the beeping heart monitor that I was wired to. The doctor asked me to show him where I had pain. I gestured to the origin of the searing sting in my skull. The doctor then asked me to describe my symptoms, all the while nodding as a signal to show that he was comprehending what I was explaining.

Then, the nurse returned to take blood; she noticed my nervous facial expressions when she began to prepare my arm for the I.V. My whole body tensed when she unveiled the huge needle that was destined for my arm. She touched my shoulder in a warm and friendly way to try to convey her good intentions. At this point she could plainly comprehend from my face that I was in so much pain that I would put my fear of needles aside, letting her poke and prod my body at her desc ression. Her forehead subsequently wrinkled in silent concentration as she searched for a suitable vein, her eyebrows suddenly lowering in a show of disappointment. She missed the vein, and when she tried again to insert the needle, she completely punctured my vein, thereby causing a hematoma. I shuttered at the new shooting twinge of pain coming from my arm, joining the long list of things currently ailing me.

After the nurse completed a successful I.V. in my other arm, she gave a noticeable sigh of relief. The doctor returned and performed a battery of physical tests. He then examined my sense of balance, pupil reaction, and overall response to visual stimuli. The doctor then moved in very close to me, looking very concerned. He informed me that I was to have a C.A.T. scan to search for a possible aneurysm. As I waited patiently for my turn to be scanned, I watched through the door as other patients were wheeled down the hall by orderlies.

I tried to take my mind off the pain by guessing what each person was afflicted with. One woman was hastily pushed down the hall, her face wincing in pain, legs bent and stomach protruding from her white T-shirt. This one was easy, all the nonverbal cues of child labor. The next patient was a middle-aged man; his gurney was parked just outside of my room. The orderly kept yelling at him to wake up and open his eyes.

The man was limp, and his motions when awake were erratic and overemphasized. The orderly asked him to stand. The man fell off the gurney and rolled on to the ground. This was another easy nonverbal diagnosis. The patient was exhibiting traditional cues of being severely intoxicated. This nonverbal guessing game was amusing, but it was finally my turn to take a trip to the CAT scan.

The scan went quickly, but on the way back to my hospital room, I caught a glimpse of the pregnant woman behind some curtains. She had given birth, and her newborn baby was rapped in a pink blanket with a pink beanie on its head. With all the pink that the child was adorned with, I guessed that she had given birth to a girl because pink being a nonverbal symbol for the female gender. There were countless examples of nonverbal communication expressed during my lengthy hospital visit, but most of them are a little fuzzy due to the drugs they pumped into me. Drugs aside, the importance of effective patient / doctor communication cannot be emphasized enough. Communication involves much more than a doctor's verbal ability.

Nonverbal communication, listening and observational skills also play important roles. The doctor gathered more information about my emergancy by observing my facial expressions, movement, tone of voice, gestures, and eye contact than listing to my words alone. My visit to the emergancy room reinforced the important role of nonverbal communication in a situation where I had to communicate effectively. The exchange of information between the doctor and me was successful in the sense that the verbal and nonverbal communication was effective, and it helped build a therapeutic relationship that produced a desired outcome, a proper diagnosis, with my health being restored!