Communication is part of humanity. It is integral to every aspect of our lives. Today was my first formative feedback for the first two weeks as a palliative medicine fellow. While overall good, I feel like I have so much to try to improve on in an infinitesimally short amount of time. I need to learn how to communicate the role of palliative care, on identifying and responding to emotion, on giving patient's and their caregivers the respect they deserve. There's dissolving conflict and providing prognosis. There's discussing goals, values, and how these play into future care. There's discussions of physical, psychological, spiritual pain. Of any type of symptom a person can have and how it affects their quality of life and what we can offer to address it. The list goes on and on. Communication is the key to the palliative medicine fellowship, and I feel like a baby making its first few coos in an attempt to figure out how to form words. I feel like I am so far behind and have so far to go to be able to remember everything I'm supposed to say, when I'm supposed to say it, and how I'm supposed to say it. I hope I will improve. My worry is that each time I practice to improve one skill, I will forget another. My brain is fried.
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