A few days ago, I met a high school friend I hadn’t seen in eight years. She repaired HR (Human Resource), a serious headhunter.
She is well aware of my urgent need for doctor-patient communication skills as a doctor. She taught me that the key to communication is to understand each other’s type, vary from person to person, and communicate individually. Here are her classification methods and skills:
HR is a very popular behavioral testing tool PDP (Professional Dynamic Program). [Behavioral Style] refers to the best style of doing things in a person’s talent. According to the different style characteristics of different people, five kinds of animals are used to represent them respectively, namely:
Tiger, Owl, Chameleon, Peacock and Koala.
In fact, in clinical practice, patients with various [exotic flowers] [high energy] may be one of the five animals. Facing different types of patients, how can we break through the communication barriers with them one by one?
Tiger Type: I’m the only one
Features:
Confident, authoritative, decisive, like to evaluate, like to control the overall situation and give orders.
Representative Type:
Cadres, senior leaders and business owners are occasionally seen in the parents of some pediatric patients and the families of obstetrics and gynecology patients.
Typical Performance:
This type of patients, we often see in clinical. Most of the time, they just want the best service, with the best medicine, with the best treatment (in fact, this is normal, human nature). At home may be accustomed to uncompromising decision-making, in the company is also a more decisive leadership style.
However, this type of patients also have one thing in common, that is, they have high expectations for therapeutic effects. In their eyes, as much as they pay, there should be as much curative effect, and the curative effect as [reward] should be equal to the payment.
Get along with strategy:
Based on professional knowledge, examination and treatment should also consider the patient’s personal feelings. Doctors should lead the treatment plan, but at the same time communicate with patients on an equal footing, explain the examination and treatment methods, and strive for their understanding.
The most important thing is that in the face of such patients, one should pay special attention to self-esteem and self-love, and take sufficient professional accomplishment as one’s [confidence]. In case of irreversible illness, one should tell one’s family members or the patient himself in advance that there is a possibility that people and money are both empty, and doctors cannot guarantee any treatment.
Owl Type: Thoughtful
Features:
It is very traditional, pays attention to details, is organized, conservative, has strong analytical power, high accuracy, and has a formal and implicit personality.
Representative Type:
Journalists, teachers, high-level intellectuals who have gone to college or higher education.
Typical Performance:
My sister is a university teacher, educating her daughter has a set of their own ideas. I remember once, my niece had an upper respiratory tract infection and the doctor prescribed antibiotics. My sister called me. She heard of superbacteria, because she was afraid of causing drug resistance, so she didn’t want to let my niece take the drugs prescribed by the doctor.
In this way, I spent less than half an hour on the phone with a master’s degree student in economic management explaining the drug resistance mechanism. I didn’t know the information she obtained through what channels, and finally I didn’t listen to the doctor’s instructions to let my little niece take the medicine.
A week later, the little niece’s condition worsened and eventually became pneumonia. She had to be hospitalized later.
Get along with strategy:
This type of patients is generally mostly teachers and patients with various higher education levels. They are more thoughtful, like to use search engines and consult data, want to understand various pathological and pharmacological mechanisms, but often know little about them.
For such patients or their families, reliable information sources and appropriate methods are very important. I will generally recommend them to use various popular science public numbers under Dr. Clove to reverse their wrong ideas through authoritative professionalism.
More importantly, it is to increase their trust in doctors. Following the doctor’s advice is the most important thing I can do for them to do.
Chameleon: wavering
Features:
Has a high degree of adaptability, fickle character, extremely flexible, less personality and principle.
Representative Type:
Full-time housewives or retired women.
Typical Performance:
This type of patient, the first time to the hospital, usually accompanied by a large number of family members. Every time the illness, clinical decision-making conversation, if only he was present at that time, they also want me to report back to his family members after listening. Sometimes, they need to call their children to make a decision, have no confidence in their own decision.
In clinical practice, we have seen many patients who persuaded them to do CT the day before, but may not be seen the next day. They suddenly said that they were worried about radiation, or that they were worried about the discomfort of creating a shadow enhancer. They changed their minds temporarily and hesitated.
Get along with strategy:
In the face of wavering chameleon patients, it is best to have any important conversation accompanied by children or other relatives. Heavy clinical work does not allow you to spend too much time on the same thing.
Any necessary examination should emphasize the pros and cons with him, and at the same time give him sufficient time to weigh them. Pay attention to the signing of various clinical medical documents to avoid unnecessary legal risks caused by patients’ emotional changes.
Peacock Type: Warm and Cheerful
Features:
Emotional, optimistic, fluent in eloquence, good at making friends, sincere and enthusiastic, optimistic in personality and strong in expressive desire.
Representative Type:
Salesmen, shopping guides, tour guides, various types of narrators, free entrepreneurs.
Typical Performance:
I remember meeting a young female patient with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
[Doctor, I am a very strange patient], this is the opening remarks of the first meeting.
She enthusiastically reported her medical history to me with a energetic inch. If it weren’t for her articulate and super-strong expressive ability, I would have had a hard time understanding her complicated medical history.
It turns out that she is a media worker and is very good at communication. At the same time, she has a cheerful personality and a positive life.
Get along with strategy:
If you meet this type of patient, your job is lucky. At least you save a lot of time in explaining your illness and communicating with each other in language, mainly for pleasant communication.
However, it should also be noted that people who are too optimistic are easy to ignore details and be careless. After listening to her oral medical history, we must combine detailed paper medical records.
Koala Type: Gentle Acceptance
Features:
Very stable, sincere enough, gentle and regular, not good at conflict, steady in behavior, emphasizing plain, gentle and kind.
Representative Type:
Simple peasants, workers, people of the lower class.
Typical Performance:
This type of patient is basically completely obedient to the doctor’s advice. Don’t cry, don’t make noise, don’t be fierce, don’t make noise.
Every ward round, I sat by the bed and listened quietly to the doctors’ communication. After the ward round, I smiled gently and attached a “Thank you, doctor”!
They are generally amiable in facial expression, slow in speech and soft in voice. They are fully supportive of the clinical decisions made by various doctors.
Get along with strategy:
Congratulations to the patients who gently accept koala type, you are the happiest one. Seriously, carefully and responsibly manage their illness and sincerely repay their trust with professionalism.
Postscript: Compare Heart to Heart and Treat People with Honesty
After these introductions, my HR friend played a little game with me:
[Come on, show me the word “human”? ] She pulled up her broken hair on her forehead with a shallow smile.
[Is that okay? I drew my index finger from my left and right hands and left and right hands and left and right hands and left and right hands to set up a character.
[But in my eyes it is a word of “entering”! Sitting opposite me, she smiled again.
[Oh, yes.]
[Your first reaction is to put on the word “human” from the perspective of yourself. This is a normal reaction, but you do not consider the feelings of the person sitting opposite. Similarly, when you communicate with the patient, any treatment and examination should first be considered from the patient’s point of view and inform them in the way he is most willing to accept. Perhaps your communication will be smoother.]
Yes, it is a strategy. In fact, most of them treat people with sincerity, whether they are doctors or human beings.