By: Zia Gray
Throughout our blog, we have realized how important nonverbal communication can be in the healthcare field. It can help doctors with determination of diagnosis and it can help improve a patient's experience. As a student currently in a Nonverbal Communication course, I wonder how much this course has taught me? I have learned so much about nonverbal communication, but could I easily do it in real life? I thought I would check this question out in the medical world. In 2010, Hirono Ishikawa, Hideki Hashimoto, Makoto Kinoshita, and Eiji Yano set out to find some answers! The placed medical students groups and put them through different models of medical training. Students sat through a nonverbal communication session that concluded with a session with a "patient". One group had a mentor intervening throughout the patient session and the other did not have any intervention. The researchers wanted to examine whether students could learn nonverbal communication and if so, through what educational model? These researchers found that students that had a mentor intervene throughout the patient session, paid more attention to the training. That makes sense to me, because I know if I am going to be graded or asked questions, I am more likely to pay attention! Even though those students paid more attention, it did not cause a significant change in the pre-test, post-test interviews used in the process. Students did not apply or discuss nonverbal communication skills in their interviews. Is this bad news or is there a silver lining? The researchers admit that learning and applying nonverbal communications skills can be very hard. In the medical field, teachers may need to adapt and examine their teaching methods to see how students can learn these skills the best. So far we see two main teaching methods emerge: content based and method based. While this study did not find that the students gained extensive nonverbal communication skills, we can use this study to help improve our teaching methods! As nonverbal communication continues to be recognized as important in the medical field, I am excited to see how teaching methodology evolves. In my nonverbal communication course, I feel as I have learned many important skills and I hope to apply them in the future! Check on Hannah's blog on the University of Barcelona to see how they taught their students nonverbal skills! Also, if you have any ideas on how to teach nonverbal communication, comment below! Source: Ishikawa, H., Hashimoto, H., Kinoshita, M., & Yano, E. (2010). Can nonverbal communication skills be taught? Medical Teacher, 32(10), 860-863. doi:10.3109/01421591003728211
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