"Not The End Of The World"

Today we had an all day communication skills session. Sounds like a real barrel of laughs eh? Even more so when it’s about terminal cancer and dying! There was an interesting start to the morning, as an icebreaker exercise (despite being in the same groups in previous sessions and having spent the last 2 and a half years together) we had to pretend to be QVC presenters in pairs. This provoked much eye-rolling, not only by me but most of my colleagues and there were understandably no volunteers so I volunteered the tutor to go first. To be fair, he did, and he showed it how it should be done. So, in turns we spend 5 minutes trying to sell ridiculous objects that the tutor had brought along ranging from a Cliff Richard CD to 2 self-help books on parenting. To start with I thought this exercise was pointless and ridiculous but when it came to my turn I was actually quite enthusiastic, unlike my partner who looked like she’d rather be dancing naked on the town hall steps. Our ‘item’ was an original artwork (a collage concoction put together by the tutor’s daughter I think). I actually had fun trying to sell this fantastic piece to my audience who were at the ready with their phones and credit cards. It was mentioned that perhaps medicine is the wrong career for me and that I perhaps have a future with QVC.

Anyway, from there, the day got more depressing as it went on. The case ran all day with a series of simulated patient sessions. By early afternoon the ‘patient’ had taken a turn for the worse and didn’t have long left. I was lucky in some ways when my scenario came round. The patient’s son had come from London and wanted to talk to me, the F1, about his father’s condition. This made it fairly easy from my point of view as all I had to do was not tell him anything because of patient confidentiality, of course I had to tell the son this and empathise at the same time. All in all, it was quite successful despite me refusing to tell him anything – I think we had quite a nice SP (simulated patient), others might have shouted at me. I felt a bit sorry for the poor chap who drew the short straw and had to tell the son that the patient had died – the SP was very good and promptly broke down there in-front of him. “Not the end of the world” was perhaps not the best phrase for him to use.

I can never really decide what I think about communications skills. I really like the simulated patient aspect and actually learnt quite a few tips today. We had a pretty good tutor who didn’t drag things out too much and was quite concise. The simulated patient sessions are very useful experience indeed and in a sadistic sort of way I enjoy doing them myself (not quite enough to volunteer openly though). I think they’ll come in useful in reality when we face some of these situations in the real world. I just hope I remember some of the tips I learnt. My feedback was generally good and the tutor was surprised when it was announced that I wanted to be a surgeon. Apparently surgeons are generally lacking in the communication skills department.

The sessions can be quite voyeuristic as you’re sat there looking into the lions den, watching as one student acts out a scenario being critiqued by all those around. Sometimes it goes well, others, things can go a little wrong. It’s rather obvious who’re going to be the best communicators come August and it’s not always the ones you expect. I was pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, at how good some people were and nobody was really bad. I wonder, will those with better communication skills be the better doctors?