Communication is not what you speak
A session with young physiotherapists on what communication really is, and "recreation": creating back for a patient what they said.
We did a session at the Apollo Institute of Physiotherapy, where I had the privilege of training the next generation of physiotherapists.
We started by examining what communication means for us as human beings. Does it mean what we speak? What we express through our body language? What we express through our words?
We discovered that communication is none of this. Communication is what the other person got.
So how do we, as medical professionals, make sure our patients get that they have been gotten?
As a means to that end, we had a conversation about the practice of "recreation". Recreation is creating back for the patient what they spoke. It aims at making sure the patient gets that they were gotten.
I did one short mock with a student. She first practised listening to the patient the way we habitually do, and then establishing communication through recreation. She was completely taken aback by her own experience of being completely heard. I could see a gradual shift in the way the students were participating.
As they started to see how this could make an impact not just on their medical interactions but in their day-to-day lives, I could see a keenness developing. We invited them to do mocks, and then to share their experience of those mocks. As I heard their sharing, I became present to the tremendous privilege it was to have contributed to these young minds of the future.
It was such a pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity, Vipra Shah, and special thanks to Dr. Bosky Mehta for being my partner through all of the journey, and to Rajesh Upadhyay for being my partner through the session.
