In her previous articles for InSight+, Dr Sarah White has written about clinical communication, drawing on her and others’ experiences to illustrate research evidence on the science on health care interactions. In this article, she interviews Dr Rhiannon Parker from UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Social…

HAVE you ever prefaced a story with “did I tell you about ...”? We do this kind of prefacing to avoid telling the other person something they already know. This norm is present in everyday conversations as well as institutional ones. Personally, I say this a lot, particularly if I am explaining…

AS a lay person when it comes to medicine, I have a certain understanding of the word “diagnosis”. This was reflected in my doctoral research on the structure of surgeon–patient consultations where I preferred to label it as “reformulating the problem” to capture the process of combining information…

QUITE a few of my friends exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet. One of these gym-going friends recently went to have a COVID-19 test and during the pre-test screening was asked whether she was fit and healthy, to which she answered “yes”. The next question was whether she was on any medication,…

EARLIER this year I was in hospital for urgent surgery after it was found I had an ectopic pregnancy. While waiting in the anaesthetic bay at around 10 pm, the anaesthetist came in to ask me what I assume are all the usual preoperative questions. The nurse had already asked a few and now the doctor…

I HAVE experienced chronic pain all of my adult life. As part of my current management plan, I am prescribed pain medication. There is a lot of stigma attached to medication management of chronic pain, so I often find it difficult to bring it up, even though my regular GP developed the management plan…

DURING my undergraduate degree I was acutely unwell with a bad cold. I needed a medical certificate to get an extension on an assessment that was due so I could recover through rest. I couldn’t get into my regular GP, so I went to one nearer the campus. As I was a new patient, the doctor wanted to…

ONE of my favourite studies to share with doctors is what’s commonly known as the “some/any” study. In this randomised control trial, participating primary care doctors were trained to ask the patient about their additional concerns after they had presented their first concern (presenting complaint…

MEDICAL schools and colleges agree that communication is important to clinical practice. Sometimes it is seen as essential for patient satisfaction or rapport building, which are important, but this is a limited view as to how communication can directly affect patient care. As a linguist and conversation…