Training for Paediatricians and Paediatric Students

Communication with Children

The module is designed for autonomous learning of softskills and targets pediatricians, residents in pediatrics and students. The most important five soft skills illustrated through practical applications are: Greeting child patients and introductions (using loving tones, smiling, simple language, in a sitting position, Using simple language and repetition of key terms in communicating with children, Asking questions, teach back and show me, reflection, mirroring, and other communication techniques, Empathy, Building trust.

Communicating with Parents

During the medical examinations doctors and parents should understood each other, without this there won’t be a mutual confidence. To ensure good communication between parents and health care providers it’s necessary to understand what parents consider important about doctor-patient/parent relationships and what are the most critical points of medical encounters. Communicating with Parents chapter will show how paediatricians, residents in paediatrics and students can improve the following soft skills through practical applications: Empathy and collaboration with the parents, Using simple language and repetitions, Asking/answering questions, Listening to a parent’s concerns, Giving bad news to parents

Communication in a Multicultural Environment

Communication in a multicultural environment presents many challenges and pitfalls for practitioners of pediatric care, especially those at the beginning of their professional career. It is obvious that medical caretaking operates in a world that is increasingly marked by intercultural and multicultural diversity. Mass migration and the displacement of ethnic groups and minorities are the driving forces of today’s multicultural world. Therefore, medical practitioners - including students of medicine - see themselves confronted with an increasingly diverse patient population. At the same time, practitioners of pediatrics face the challenge of communicating with patients whose abilities to convey feelings of well-being, discomfort, pain or distress are not fully developed.

Communicating with Peers

Decision-making processes in paediatrics constitute a big challenge for paediatricians and health care professionals involved in paediatrics care. Teamwork communication represents a relevant aspect of the quality of care and is an essential to improve patients and families satisfaction during the stay in the paediatric ward. In order to face the complexity of children’s care, peers communication can strength therapeutic strategies and improve the response to patient health care needs. Paediatrics teamwork is frequently constituted by several specialized physicians with a diversity of clinical competences and a plurality of priorities, for that reason therapeutic short terms goals became frequently a source of conflict.

Communicating with Health Care Staff

In pediatric units, different kinds of health care staff interact. Staff groups working with children and young people include, for example, lay members, receptionists, administrative, caterers, domestics, transport, porters, community pharmacist counter staff and maintenance staff, optometrists, dentists and pharmacists, as well as volunteers across health care settings and service provision. Critically ill patients and their families can feel overwhelmed with the stress of the environment in addition to the acute illness both in hospital and residentially. This stress affects the patients' and families' ability to function, cope, and understand complex information. For some families, this experience precipitates distrustful relationships with care providers. The resulting impact on quality of care, staff morale, length of stay, and cost may be high. This module has the intent to present the most important aspects involved in communicating with other health care staff in pediatrics: channels, styles, barriers.