Medical How should I talk about doubt towards medical profession in essays

[Goro]

I wanted to talk about how one of my experiences taught me about the importance of clear communication between physicians and patients, and how miscommunication can cause doubt towards the medical profession.
I know that it is a bad idea to talk poorly of the medical profession, but is that advice generally for if someone wants to talk poorly about a specific interaction they saw?
I think in this case, it is more just talking about a general issue I've learned about medicine.
Would it be alright to talk about this?

What's the point you're trying to make?

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[Goro]

Talking about a new insight I gained

Talk about it in a way that is 100% objective, and doesn't cats blame on the clinician. Spin it more as communication, period. Otherwise, this can blow up in your face.

You can also avoid it altogether and express how important you feel good communication is, and give examples of how you engage in this. Communication skills are a required competency for medical students and residents.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I wanted to talk about how one of my experiences taught me about the importance of clear communication between physicians and patients, and how miscommunication can cause doubt towards the medical profession.
I know that it is a bad idea to talk poorly of the medical profession, but is that advice generally for if someone wants to talk poorly about a specific interaction they saw?
I think in this case, it is more just talking about a general issue I've learned about medicine.
Would it be alright to talk about this?

"Cause doubt towards the medical profession"? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this.

No I don't know if it's a bad idea to talk poorly of the medical profession, but you can confirm how bad communication or miscommunication can cause greater confusion and thus poorer clinical outcomes overall. I think you need to truly understand the issue with miscommunication and how it is discussed among health professionals so you can frame your point in a professional manner.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Talk broadly about how you feel communication is important in the medical profession and try, by all means, to not use the example you stated. As a premedical student, "calling out" an attending physician (even if you are 200% correct) is NOT the way to get looks.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

What I'm trying to say is that, from a patient's perspective, when different providers are telling you different things, it causes confusion. This confusion leads to doubt towards medical professionals. Like, one doctor tells you that you are sick and need to spend thousands of dollars on treatment, and then another doctor tells you everything is fine and you don't need to do anything.

I guess you'll disclose more, but I'm confused about your perspective in this essay: are you the caregiver/patient, or are you the shadowing/observing aspiring doctor?

This doctor told me this based on stuff that happened in his experience

The example I want to talk about is how a doctor recounted to me an experience he had where this miscommunication happened. He told me that this sort of thing leads to doubt towards the medical profession, and I could see how that may be the case. I'm not trying to say that I saw a doctor do something and I made a judgement about them.

Okay, first off, hearsay doesn't make an effective personal statement... because it's just not personal.

What do you mean by this? The doctor recounted to me a story of how there was a miscommunication with a patient once. He basically said to me, "this is a lesson I want to teach you, miscommunication like this can cause confusion for patients and can make them start having doubts about the medical profession".

That's great. You'll also learn this while you're in medical school. Or go through residency. Or as a bonafide physician. That's why oral communications skills are important. But I'm not learning anything new about you and your interest in going into medicine from the story as you have described it.

I could see how this is an issue. Doctors often come from science backgrounds, and maybe they sometimes forget that the lay public has not gone through medical school. Even though the patient nods as you explain to them what's going on, it doesn't mean they understand. Also, I could see how the doctor would be viewed as an authority figure, and the patient might not feel comfortable questioning them (even though the doctors have said two different things)

This sounds like a great article for a blog post on SDN. But that said, this is odd if you want to use it for your personal statement.

And don't offend anyone you haven't met by saying "doctors often come from science backgrounds." Sure, you're right, but what's the point that you insinuate with the rest of the paragraph? Some doctors with non-science, humanities/social science backgrounds also may have difficulty communicating with patients.

EDIT: I just re-read where I wrote about this in a secondary I already submitted, and I realized that the way it's written makes it sound like I'm questioning what the physician did......pretty ironic that I'm writing about good communication when I can't seem to communicate my ideas clearly.

I think it's always ironic when I read essays where the author writes about communication as a competency. You have to really convince me you know what you're talking about because many of those essays are not clear, concise, or well-written, bringing their entire essay into question that they're just trying to play to "the checklist" of what my committee wants to hear rather than being honest about their own thoughts and feelings to share with the committee.

 

[Goro]

I am a shadow



This is for a secondary question that asked me to describe my clinical experiences.

I can't say much about myself from a shadowing experience, but I did gain some new insight into a valuable lesson about medicine


I'm not trying to insinuate that. I could likely rephrase that and just say that doctors might forget that the lay public do not have the same medical background

we have an entire thread here about the importance of communication skills, and you've learned nothing from it. I can't sugarcoat this, it almost appears that you are self-sabotaging.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I'm going to speak more generally about this lesson rather than give specific incidental details.

If you end up using it, this is what I suggest. Good luck!