Effective medical communication improves health

My dog Lucy is, in one word, special. Of course, every pet owner would say that, but in her case even a behavioural specialist would agree.

The one thing that is most "outstanding" is that she has three legs. To her it’s no big deal, and we don't even realise it anymore. It has one peculiar effect though:

Since dogs communicate via body language, hers seems to be a little bit wonky with her back leg missing. Therefore, other dogs don't understand her right away and she developed the annoying habit to bark at every single dog we see like all hell broke loose. Not in an aggressive way, just because she doesn't know why other dogs don't understand her (an issue that is usually quickly resolved by some intense rear-end sniffing).

The bottom line is that Lucy is not an effective communicator. The message she is trying to send is not the same message that is received by her peers.

We, as medical communication professionals, often have the same problem.

Very often, the message our reader receives differs from the message we send, and I swear I have been barked at for that very reason.

While Lucy can't do anything about her leg, we can and must strive to communicate as effectively as we can.

Fig. 1: Lucy

Effective medical communication helps the reader solve a real and painful problem.

You probably knew that already, it seems fairly obvious. What is not obvious is how we can achieve that.

Lucky for me, there is no simple solution – otherwise this blog would be completely useless.

But there are also great news for you:

I will share how you and I can notably increase the probability of solving real and painful problems with effective medical communication.

I am thrilled to start this journey and I hope you will join me along the way (or even right from the start).

See you soon,

best wishes,