Interpersonal Skill in Medicine: the Essential Partner of Verbal Communication

Overview

Journal J Gen Intern Med

Publisher Springer

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2007 Apr 18

PMID 17437144

Citations 18

Authors

Lawrence Dyche

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Medical educators have promoted skillful communication as a means for doctors to develop positive relationships with their patients. In practice, communication tends to be defined primarily as what doctors say, with less attention to how, when, and to whom they say it. These latter elements of communication, which often carry the emotional content of the discourse, are usually referred to as interpersonal skills. Although recognized as important by some educators, interpersonal skills have received much less attention than task-oriented, verbal aspects. Moreover, the field lacks a common language and conceptualization for discussing them. This paper offers a framework for describing interpersonal skills and understanding their relationship to verbal communication and describes an interpersonal skill-set comprised of Understanding, Empathy, and Relational Versatility.

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