If blogger Dr. Kevin Pho had his way, more doctors would be like Malcolm Gladwell, author of (most recently) David and Goliath. Why? “We need more storytellers,” Pho writes. If doctors and the healthcare industry were better at communicating,
I’m inclined to agree. In a past life, I taught engineers, pharmacy students and budding young scientists (among a few rare history buffs or sculptors) in a creative writing course at a large STEM university. I’d love to push my agenda on how the liberal arts expand the scope of human capacity, empathy and generally make life a richer experience. (See what I did there?) But for many of these students, the need to communicate what their work means to others will be the difference between career flight and career flop. Being able to tell a story and tell it well are key to success in the sciences, particularly as patients become healthcare’s (re-discovered) consumers.
If compassion doesn’t cut it for some of you, think of it this way. Storytelling may be a key factor in retaining physician preference items for patients, in negotiating for new medical devices at budget meetings and in reducing readmissions. For doctors, it could be the difference between a patient who listens and complies with advice or prescriptions and one who’s readmitted.
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Or, as Pho puts it:
Imagine if more physicians could use the power of story to explain why, say, patients don’t necessarily need antibiotics for their cold. Or why getting that PSA test in an 80-year-old man isn’t necessarily a good idea.
But look at how dry the CDC antibiotic guidelines, or the USPSTF prostate cancer recommendations are. Yawn, right? It’s no wonder why patient education sometimes falls on deaf ears.
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