Communicating with Patients: What Premeds Should Know

Communicating with patients in a sincere, empathetic and informative manner is a crucial part of being an excellent doctor. As a premedical student, you will encounter patients in your various clinical activities. Here are five tips to effectively communicate with patients:

This may sound obvious, but sometimes premed students get intimidated when meeting patients – especially sick patients – for the first time and forget to introduce themselves.

When you step into a room to meet a patient, give your name and position, such as hospital volunteer, medical assistant, etc. Many older patients are hard of hearing and hospital rooms have several beeping monitors, so speak loudly so that patients can hear you.

It’s tough being a patient, and being a patient can be a scary experience. Hospitalized patients could be receiving cancer therapy or undergoing a major surgery.

Remember to be empathetic when interacting with patients. I think a good attitude to embrace is: How can you help the patient and make his or her life a little bit easier?

Below are some ways you can offer help to patients, giving you direct patient interaction while assisting the medical team.

As a hospital volunteer, you can bring the patient a warm blanket or water. Additionally, if you are volunteering on the hospital floor, you can help with improving a patient’s mobility and strength by walking a patient around the hospital unit. You can also support the nursing staff or physical therapist with patient exercises.

As a hospice volunteer, you can listen to patients tell stories about their lives and keep them company. Some premed students record a patient’s stories in a journal and then compile them into a memoir. It’s a nice gift to give patients and their loved ones.

Many disadvantaged patients do not have full insurance coverage for medical services or medications. You can help patients and their medical teams call post-hospital health care providers or pharmacies.

For example, many expensive medications have discount programs, and you can assist patients with calling around to find cheaper medications. Moreover, some patient families may need to stay long-term in the area while a patient receives treatment; you can help the families find cheap accommodations.

Many patients may not be able to go home directly after a hospital visit, and you can help the medical team with finding options for discharge plans.

For example, some patients may need to be placed in skilled nursing facilities or rehab centers after the hospital. You can call various facilities and check into openings, health insurance plans they accept, out-of-pocket prices and services available. You can then communicate your findings to patients and help them compare options. These actions will be a great help for the patients’ families and medical teams.

At Children’s Hospitals, many sick children miss school. You can offer to tutor or play games with pediatric patients, ensuring they stay happy and don’t fall behind in academics.

Often, simply listening to patients helps lift their spirits. As a premed, you can listen for details that affect a patient’s health. As a physician, you will have to listen to learn about a patient’s social situation and background, which may be contributing to his or her health issues.

For example, a patient’s financial and socioeconomic situation can affect his or her access to health care and ability to afford physical therapy, healthy foods and medications. A patient may specify details about his or her family, and you can gather whether the patient has social support to help cope with an illness.

Finally, listening to stories can help you understand how busy a patient’s life is, and it can give you an understanding of how to create realistic health goals like weight loss.

Educating patients is an important component of patient care, regardless of what specialty you pursue. As a premedical student, you can play an important role in patient care by educating patients.

Here are some tips for communicating with patients while teaching about health.

Many patients don’t have a medical background, so it’s better to use simple language and not medical jargon. Even saying “stomach” instead of “abdomen” helps patients more easily understand the health information that you are teaching them.

Patients have preferences and different styles of learning. Some learn best with written handouts while other patients learn best through discussions. Still other patients learn best with visual diagrams.

As a premed patient educator, you may want to ask your patient if he or she learns better in a specific style. Or, use a combination of learning modalities like speech and drawings to explain your point.

One effective teaching method is to ask patients to teach back to you their understanding of what you taught them. Hearing patients try to explain their understanding allows you to see if there are any misunderstandings or gaps in their medical knowledge.

Families play a crucial part in a patient’s hospitalization and health outcomes. Family members transport patients to their appointments, serve as buttresses of support and sometimes are responsible for a patient’s health at home.

Some premed students serve as translators for patients and their families who don’t speak English natively. As a doctor, you will hold many family meetings and may be working with parents of pediatric patients or adult children of geriatric patients. You will have the responsibility of breaking bad news and holding difficult conversations.

Effectively communicating with patients is a learning process. Don’t be too hard on yourself if it is awkward at first. Continuously strive to improve your patient communication skills, and by the time you are a doctor you will have excellent bedside manner.