Communication Rx: Transforming Healthcare Through Relationship-Centered Communication

CHAPTER 16

Teaching the Skill Sets

Ponder, for a moment, the last time you had to learn a new skill as an adult. What circumstances made learning effective? What circumstances made learning more challenging?

Now imagine that you are 30 years into practice and are told that you have to change the way you conduct your initial interview of a patient. How do you feel? How easy or hard will it be to change? What would make it easier?

Every time I (Ellen Pearlman) start a train-the-trainer workshop, I find myself in a room with 12 experienced physicians who are faced with this challenge. There are days when I think to myself, “Who do I think I am, that I can teach under these impossible circumstances?” and wonder if it is going to be worth it. Yet ...