Chapter 10 Communication and the dental team: relationships with patients Professor Liz Kay, Foundation Dean Peninsula Dental School
Why do we need to relate well to patients? Relating well with patients, quite apart from other advantages that it confers upon the practice, enables you to get appropriate information from the patient quickly and easily. The more skilled the dental team, the less difficulty the patient will find in describing or explaining their problem. So, establishing a good rapport with a patient at the outset will enable you to define the patient’s problem and determine an appropriate solution rapidly. And they’ll like that because they’ll believe that you care, as indeed you do. Approximately 80% of the information we need in order to make a diagnosis comes from the ‘chat’ which precedes examination. Practices often like to call this part of a visit a consultation, but to the patient it is a chat about himself or herself. Thus, skills in non-verbal and verbal communication enable a dental practice to bypass irrelevant information and to quickly pinpoint the most important issues and facts, without offending the patient, or appearing to be disinterested. A further reason for competency in interpersonal relationships with patients is that, at some point we are going to have to explain the nature and cause of their oral ill-health, advise them about the treatment options, make clear what we plan to do and have them recognise their own role in the treatment. Finally, it will be necessary to both explain why we are suggesting one particular option as the best course of action and ask them to pay for their treatment. Most importantly remembering that the actions and behaviours a person undertakes on a day to day basis, at home, will have infinitely more effect on their ultimate oral health than anything we may do in the surgery) we will need to let the patient understand what they need to do to help them deal with their problem on their own. Finally, a good relationship between health care personnel and the recipient of care has a powerful therapeutic effect. For example, it has been demonstrated that 64% of patients suffering from pain, clicking and limitation of movement of their temporomandibular joints will report a noticeable improvement in their symptoms when their only ‘treatment’ has been an explanation about the nature of their disease and enthusiastic reassurance that their symptoms will subside. So, a good relationship with patients can actually make them feel healthier!
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