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Essay on Effective Communication in Healthcare
Effective communication has always been important in nurse-patient and nurse-physician relationship. Nurses are always in a situation dealing with patients and their emotions, where illness has already made patients upset. In spite of their deteriorating health, patients need hope and encouragement for every minute they are breathing and for every day of the life they are living.
Communication connects two individuals. Every word we communicate with others leaves an impression of good or bad. Communication may be verbal or non-verbal. In healthcare profession, where nurses and physicians deal with a life of a person, on one hand, it is important for them to be realistic and on the other hand they must be positive and polite enough for the listener to let him absorb what is being said to him about his health. For example, in hospitals the prognosis and hospice care talk sometimes may be delayed as an anticipation to keep up the patient’s hope for their life (Green et al, 2005). Most nurses always assume it to be the task of physicians (Wilkinson et al, 1998). However, it is firmly believed that positive and effective communication by nurses will have encouraging effect on the patients. Failing to deal with patients politely, they may loose hope and confidence in the healthcar staff.
As James Forrest Calland, MD, of University of Virginia stresses on the role of team communication in the operating room (Calland, 2001). He pointed to the fact that surgical errors are more common than medication errors. In operating room only trained staff with learned communication skills must be employed because surgeon alone is not responsible for the successful surgery, the role of nurses in maintaining the environment is important, where non-verbal communication sometimes compounds the problem. In critical care, team work has always been found to be productive......
