WCM-Q and HMC doctors publish book to boost physician communication skills

Doctors at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) have published a book to help medical students and postgraduate doctors enhance their ability to communicate with patients and pass their clinical exams.

The 290-page book presents 50 detailed scenarios for postgraduate doctors to enhance their ability to put patients at ease, take an accurate and comprehensive patient history, make the correct diagnosis and then communicate the diagnosis and treatment plan to the patient in a reassuring manner. 

Dr. Rayaz Malik of WCM-Q and HMC, Dr. Wanis H. Ibrahim and Dr. Mushtaq Ahmed of HMC, and Dr. Muhammad A. Waheed of Northampton General Hospital in England, who was formerly an HMC physician, drew on their collective experience of many years as practicing physicians and postgraduate examiners to write the book, titled History Taking and Communication Skill Stations for Internal Medicine Examinations.

Dr. Malik, Professor of Medicine and Consultant Physician at WCM-Q and HMC said: “Being able to communicate effectively and compassionately with patients is a very important skill, that even the very best doctors often struggle with. We wrote the book to help students and junior doctors develop communication skills that match their excellence as clinicians so that they can reach the very highest standards of patient care.

“I want to give complete credit to my colleagues Dr. Wanis, Dr. Mushtaq and Dr. Waheed for their tremendous work on this collaborative project.”

Many highly skilled postgraduate doctors who have proven themselves to be good clinicians often struggle to pass the compulsory history taking and communication skills components of their Arab Board or MRCP exams. This can be particularly problematic for non-native English speakers but also poses significant challenges for native speakers, as conducting a conversation while simultaneously assimilating large amounts of complex information requires a great deal of mental agility. The doctors devised a new, comprehensive seven-step approach to facilitate communication with patients whilst making the consultation more systematic and effective.

Dr. Wanis H. Ibrahim, Senior Consultant Internist and Pulmonologist at HMC said: “Being able to communicate in a pleasant and reassuring way while reviewing a very complex case is very challenging. We have developed a novel 7-step approach to make communication between the candidate, patient and examiners easy and effective. We believe this will help doctors of all nationalities and linguistic backgrounds to not only reach the correct diagnosis, but also to communicate clearly and humanely with their patients and in so doing achieve excellence in patient care.”

History Taking and Communication Skill Stations for Internal Medicine Examinations is published by JP Medical Publishers in London and New Delhi and has the ISBN number 978-1-909836-99-0.