Communication the Cleveland Clinic Way: How to Drive a Relationship-Centered Strategy for Exceptional Patient Experience

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Keys to Launching a Successful Communication Skills Training Program

Two of the underlying challenges facing anyone developing a healthcare communication skills training program for clinicians are legitimacy and credibility. A polarity exists in medicine between the positions that quality medicine is about technique and biomedical understanding, on the one hand, and that quality medicine is a humanistic endeavor in which emotional intelligence and communication and relationship skills are important, on the other. Although these two positions are not mutually exclusive, they are often posed as if they were, as though we had to choose between having an airline pilot who knew how to take off or one who knew how ...