It is important to constantly reflect on one’s ability to communicate in order to improve. This is challenging in itself as you must try and identify what you know and actively seek out knowledge to challenge yourself. It can be hard to find information that does not agree with your world view and it is hard to practice some of these communication techniques. Communication is not easy, which is why we must reflect. It is also challenging to understand how communication may not be the same in each professional field. Paramedics do not experience much time with their patients so their way of communicating can contrast with another profession such as a psychologist who may have more clinical time with the patient.
Throughout this unit, I have started to understand how effective communication is in improving health care outcomes. Specifically with this ePortfolio, I have found studies that have stated how better communication does have clinical results. If I had three takeaways from this unit, they would be the use of active listening, empathy, and knowledge of non-verbal communication. I plan to practice active listening in my own life in order to improve my skill in retaining and understanding as much information as possible. If I can utilize it in normal conversation, hopefully this means I will be effective in using it with patients. I plan to practice empathy in order to understand an individual’s framework and hopefully understand their circumstances better in order to facilitate conversation with future patients. And overall, I plan to pay attention to more than just verbal communication. There is so many ways to communicate and it is important to not just limit yourself to one.
Communication in Paramedicine 