Challenges of ASD when working with patients

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Pwstcla

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As a medical student with mild ASD (when I was first diagnoses, Asperger's was still its own thing), I have some advantages and some disadvantages. The calm, data driven thought process I have is useful in understanding the science of medicine, but my difficulty in reading social cues makes patient interaction uncomfortable for me. I was wondering if any other students in a similar situation to mine had any luck finding any training or similar that they found helpful in improving their professional social skills. I have found lots of information for behavioral training in very young children, but very little for adults.

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It’s dofferent for everyone due to the wide variability and degree of “awkwardness”. It may be helpful to realize you are essentially reciting a script with every patient. Anytime our patient encounters diverted away from the actual medicine, I always thought “insert empathy here”. Sounds stupid, but it really helped me fall back to the empathy scripts of open ended questions and basically repeating what they said back to them to show you are listening. I personally have a hard time trying to not “fix the situation, or offer a solution” and this always reminded me that if I felt awkward and that I’m not actually doing anything to fix the situation, then I’m probably doing this empathy thing right..
 
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