Episode 17: Providing Patient-Centered Education

2021-05-09

Have you ever had a moment where you realize that a patient did not understand what you thought you educated them on? We have! In this episode, we share our strategies for providing patient-centered education rather than lecturing. We’ve developed a checklist to follow: Assess their current understanding Ask permission to share your knowledge or perspective Identify their skepticism and response Break it down into chunks Check their interpretation We explain each step, how we do it, and why we do so. We’ve...

Have you ever had a moment where you realize that a patient did not understand what you thought you educated them on? We have!

In this episode, we share our strategies for providing patient-centered education rather than lecturing. We’ve developed a checklist to follow:

Assess their current understanding
Ask permission to share your knowledge or perspective
Identify their skepticism and response
Break it down into chunks
Check their interpretation

We explain each step, how we do it, and why we do so. We’ve learned that patient-centered education is an ongoing process, especially when we're working to change a limiting belief. This strategy helps us meet people where they are and provide tailored education that’s meaningful to the individual we're working with.

Highlights from our conversation in Episode 17

(1:12) Monika’s case example of patient “education” that went awry
(5:17) Lecturing versus educating/counseling
(7:18) #1 Assess their current understanding
(9:45) Sammy’s case example of skipping step #1
(11:07) #2 Ask permission to share your knowledge
(13:38) #3 Identify their skepticism and response
(19:08) #4 Break it down into chunks
(21:18) #5 Check their interpretation
(23:46) The snowball of patient-centered education

Thank you for listening to The Conscious Clinician. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and write a review for the podcast to grow our community. Keep the conversation going by following The Conscious Clinician on Instagram and Facebook.

Resources from Episode 17