It is funny how it seems like everything in this life will come around more than one time. You know what I mean… hair styles seems to come back into style every 20 years or so and the same with clothes. Lately, I have had several patients confide their frustrations that everyone multi-tasks. Many of their heath providers do not look at them while speaking with them. Often, this is because no longer are providers writing down notes in a folder while facing the patient. Now to put notes into a “patient profile” everyone faces a computer screen and diminishes the personal touch and often needed visual cues for better speech understanding. As this has came up several times in the last several days it reminded me of a note that I got from a patient several years ago. So I will share this note…and hopefully…all of us will work a little harder at our communication skills.

FRUSTRATING! YES…YES IT IS! When we talk to someone it really is important to look at who we are talking to. Often I have patients confide to me that their spouse looks away when they are talking to them. Thus, their voice drops and they can’t hear or understand them. A big complaint is when they look out the passenger window and “mumble” while in the car. One of the biggest is when “they cover their mouth with their hands”. But it’s not just our spouses that are guilty of bad communication habits. At church we have problems. I have one lady who calls them “holy mumblers” She so wishes she could hear friends at bible study.

While we are all guilty of it sometimes I think perhaps this little story will keep this picture of difficulty in your mind; and help you communicate better. I recently got this sent to me in an email as “an idea for your weekly article”. I will edit some of the explicit frustrations and also the specific professionals that he named.

My patient writes with frustration; “The number of adults, even in the professional capacities, who fail to grasp the plight of the hearing impaired is appalling. Case in point: I was in the process of explaining to my heart surgeon, Dr.______ how badly I was plagued with by Pulsatile tinnitus and how I had to increasingly rely on lip reading and needed him to refer me to a vascular surgeon— The whole time I was talking to him he was looking away from me, staring down at his PC and mumbling S____! I wanted to just yell, “Hey numb …….. (u must fill in this part) have you been listening to me at all? Then the same thing happened at Dr. _______ , my ophthalmologist. I had a discussion with him about my hearing and how I need to read lips, then he sits down behind the eye machine thing and mumbles at me. WHAT THE HELL?! It’s dark, I can’t see his lips and he’s sitting on my left side. (Which is my dead ear). What good does it do to explain things to people when it goes in one freaking ear and out the other… (no pun intended). Tell people, PARTICULARLY HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, that we old folks rely on so often, to listen to what their patients are saying, then speak up, slow down and enunciate.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Since I got this email I had an appointment with my ophthalmologist. I have really poor vision when not corrected. (20/1000 in one eye and 20/500 in the other). As I sat in the dark with my eye’s dilated, she started to speak, her face pointed away and staring into the computer monitor. While I could hear her (I have normal hearing) it wasn’t as comfortable as when the lights are on and my contacts are in. Then… I remembered this email. My eye doc is new to the practice and this was the first time meeting her. She didn’t know me from Adam. So I said. “It’s really dark in here”. Nothing! I got Nothing! Hmm… I don’t give up so easy. So… I said, “I notice that I see so much better in bright light, In fact; if I read the newspaper outside in the morning I don’t even need to put readers on over my contacts!” I got yes bright light causes … bla bla bla… Then…. “So do you have a lot of seniors?” I got the nod. At that point I just stated. Hearing and eyes are so important to proper communication. Just like I have to work extra hard to understand you because I can’t see your face or your gestures; most of the seniors that you have as patients will have some degrees of hearing loss. This will make it very difficult for them to actually understand what you are saying when then can’t see
you because of the dark and then you position yourself behind your Phoroptor. (Eye machine thing). She moved the machine and flipped on the lights and said while nodding… “that is true.. What do you do?” So I told her and then we further discussed patients frustrations. Thanks for the input Ron! To Hear Better Is To Live Better.

By: Roseann B. Kiefer, B.A., BC-HIS