“We’re All Time Poor”: Experienced Clinicians’ and Students’ Perceptions of Challenges Related to Patient Communication

Abstract

Phenomenon

Communication is a complex and essential element of clinical practice. It is widely accepted that communication skills can be taught and learned, but challenges remain for clinicians in achieving effective communication with patients. This study explored the patient-communication challenges faced by both medical students and experienced clinicians.

Approach

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty medical students and nineteen experienced clinicians from a range of medical disciplines. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and transcriptions subjected to thematic analysis and coding to quantify the challenges discussed.

Findings

There was remarkable consistency in the challenges described by both groups of participants, with eight predominant challenges identified: time constraints and chaotic environments, rapport building, patient characteristics, reluctance, omissions, assumptions, decision-making, and keeping conversations focused.

Insights

Medical curricula often focus on communication challenges associated with complex or sensitive clinical situations, but many of the challenges identified occur in routine consultations. Both pre-service and post-graduate medical training should adopt strategies to help build students’ and clinicians’ skills in managing these challenges from the outset of training.

Keywords:

• Communication
• challenges
• interpersonal skills

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express our appreciation of the clinicians and students who took part in the study, and of Gennady Baksheev who assisted with data collection.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (reference number HEAG-H 12_2014) and all participants gave written, informed consent to participate and for their de-identified data to be used in publication.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the fact that with small numbers and the sharing of personal experiences, participants could be potentially identifiable. Data is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Funding

No funding was obtained for this study