Improving Your Communication Skills

Giving information. To tell or not to tell? The best way to help your doctor accurately diagnose the problem is for you to give as much information about your symptoms as possible. Sometimes that is hard, though. As noted above, doctors interrupt and we find it hard to finish our thoughts after that happens. So, giving information is important but harder to do than it appears. Sometimes you might have to offer information even when it’s not asked for by the physician. That is difficult especially when the doctors doesn’t look at you all the time, is facing away from you, or is looking at your chart. The doctor may be using these strategies to control the conversation. But, you can still encourage full disclosure of information by offering information that you think is relevant.