Dumb things to do at the doctor's office

CNN.com's "Empowered Patient" feature had an article today about the dumb things patients do at doctor appointments. Seven of the 10 items on the list has to do with poor communication. Patients fail to state their real concerns, fail to ask questions and are afraid to speak up when they disagree with their doctor. So much health communication research focuses on what physicians should do to improve their communication with patients. This article is a nice reminder that communication is a 2-way street. Patients need to be strong communicators as well.

Are you prepared for a zombie attack?

Perhaps the biggest challenge of a public health campaign is getting people's attention. Well the CDC certainly succeeded in getting attention with it's latest emergency preparedness campaign. The campaign kicked off with a blog about being prepared for a zombie attack and used that as a jumping off point for general emergency preparedness. The zombie blog has generated a lot of buzz, but only time will tell if the attention getting blog raises awareness of emergency preparedness.

Doctors' struggle to show compassion

Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease specialist in Memphis, reflects on the reasons physicians struggle to show patients compassion in an article in yesterday's Washington Post. But while there have been studies showing medical student losing compassion for patients in the course of their training, there is evidence that compassion can be effectively taught in physician training programs.

Compassion can perhaps be taught to physicians and health care providers in any number of ways. But compassion may ultimately come down to teaching physicians how to effectively communicate with patients in emotional circumstances. Doctors may feel compassion but may have a hard time expressing it. But training in compassionate communication, helping doctors come up with what exactly to say to a patient, may help them express the compassion they feel.

Learning to communicate effectively in multidisciplinary teams

Innovative clinical research is dependent on multi-disciplinary teams to envision, design and implement complex research protocols. The varied backgrounds and approaches can also cause culture clashes with a team, when team members from one field have trouble communicating with team members from other fields. Each team member brings not only the knowledge of their field, but also the cultural norms and behaviors socialized into their field. Those culture clashes can cause more than frustrations; they can be a serious detriment to team function. Team communication and collaboration can be particularly difficult when team members seek to protect their own power, control and authority.

On June 8, I will be presenting an ACRP webinar that will examine how specific communication behaviors impact clinical research team function. Effective team communication enhances team functioning and can strengthen team members' attachment and commitment to the team. Therefore, the goal of the presentation is to identify potential barriers to communication and team function and develop strategies for overcoming barriers and maximizing benefits of multi-disciplinary clinical research teams.

The importance of communication in clinical research

I think I finally have the Association of Clinical Research Professionals convinced about the importance of communication in clinical research. I had the privilege to present at the conference for the second time last week in Seattle. When submitting my proposals the last 2 years, I had to somehow fit my passion for communication in clinical research into one of ACRP's educational categories that didn't quite fit. I have submitted under the "ethics in clinical research" and "clinical research education" categories, but neither really acknowledged the important role of communication in this field. I knew how important effective communication behaviors and techniques are to things like effective informed consent and productive team management, but I wanted a platform to share my experience and expertise with my colleagues. My proposals were accepted but I felt like a bit of an oddball at a conference very concerned with government and clinical regulations. But this year we seem to have had a breakthrough. I had a great turnout and great discussion in my session on using communication theory to improve informed consent. The discussion both in and out of the session was robust. Attendees seemed eager to learn practical tools for integrating better communication processes in the clinical research world.

But more than my presentation, I've seen more presentations and discussion about the role of communication in both the management and execution of clinical research trials. So much so, that in the call for proposals for the ACRP 2012 conference, ACRP has suggested the category "communication in clinical research." I am excited to be a part of the growing interest in this field. And I will definitely be in Houston in 2012!