Module 07 Discussion Forum: Obstacles of Communication
You have reviewed several sources of information over the past weeks in order to fully participate in the discussion forums. This week, you had an article titled: Respiratory’s Role in the Patient Experience by Lisa Houle, from the AARC website
This article speaks to the patient experience, which can also include any family members who are with the patient. Choose a scenario or case report that you have considered or experienced. Research that scenario and the impact RTs may have in that type of situation or scenario.
Describe a situation or a potential situation where dealing with a patient and or a patient’s family was difficult.
Identify one element of communication that would be a positive and one significant obstacle in conveying either the implementation of a protocol, the progression of the protocol, or the importance of a therapy provided by a RTDP.
How did/would you overcome that obstacle? How can communication itself be an obstacle? How to you communicate with children differently than you do with adults?
Does the patient level of education play a factor? How do you work with your fellow health care professionals in the process to help overcome this obstacle in this particular scenario?
Post your response to the discussion forum scenario.
ok so I was thinking about a time I helped a patient’s family members. The patient was a 50 year old woman who had a stroke. The patient was intubated had an Endotracheal tube in her throat. The doctors explained the poor prognosis for the patient’s outcome. They gave the family the option to choose between making the patient be on comfort care measures meaning we would take the endotracheal tube out (extubate) and stop all tube feedings or continuing care but giving her a trach performing a tracheotomy and a trach is basically another artificial airway. The problem was that not only was the family members torn on the decision to make, but there wasn’t a POA (power of attorney) and she had many kids ranging from 15 years old to 28 years old. I could tell there was a struggle with the understanding behind what was going on and what everything meant. I could tell that no matter how many times providers repeated the same options and used the same terminology, they weren’t quite understanding what having a tracheostomy would entail. So I took it upon myself to physically show the family what a trach looked like, thoroughly explained the process of having a trach and the obstacles and things to expect. Luckily , I was able to take my time that day and answer any questions they had until they fully understood. So basically I helped the physicians during their care plan meeting in the room by finding a different way to communicate the message. The family members ages and education level were even more of a reason I felt the need to explain what was going on further. Just a reminder, I am a Registered Respiratory Therapist not a nurse. It is our job to manage ventilators and all artificial airways. Also, all the commentary between the asterisks is just me talking to you to help you further understand the big picture. This course is for my bachelors in respiratory so I do not need to explain things on that level.
