Many aspiring doctors spend too much time on medical textbooks and scientific concepts that they tend to forget one of the most important qualities that every doctor must possess: people skills. Your job as a doctor is not limited to making diagnoses, administering medications, or performing operations. The medical profession expects you to be more than a healer. To do your job better, you also need to assume teaching and counseling duties. Here is why interpersonal skills or people skills are important in the medical profession.
Better doctor-patient relationship
If there is one thing you should gain from your patient, it has to be trust. Your patient’s trust is very important because it will help you do your job better. Patients, in general, prefer having friendly and approachable doctors. They find it easier to explain their situation or forward their questions if their doctors show actual congeniality and genuine sincerity. If you want to get a full scoop of your patient’s feelings and concerns, then be approachable and amicable enough to be entrusted with secrets.
Healthier working environment
Exceptional people skills are also needed to develop and maintain good working relationships with the other staff members of the hospital. Remember that doctors cannot work alone. You need nurses to administer IV fluids, hematologists to perform blood tests, and radiologists to operate X-ray machines. For non-doctor medical practitioners, there are only two kinds of doctors: doctors we love and doctors we love to hate. “Doctors to love to hate” reassign all their work and blame all their mistakes to other people, while “doctors we love” make polite requests and give flattering compliments for every job well done. Treat your colleagues as your equal. The lack of an M.D. after their surnames doesn’t make you any better than them just because you have that title. Learn how to properly interact with the other hospital staff members and be the doctor that everybody loves.
Successfully performing a bypass operation or perfectly stitching a surgical suture is not enough to save a patient’s life. Real saving starts after the critical medical procedure. You need to convince your patient to commit to a healthy lifestyle. The fastest way to recovery, after all, is the patient’s willingness to heal.
Photo Credit : pmccormil
