Mumbai: Civic and government-run hospitals are always under pressure to cater to thousands of patients. Owing to which, doctors, nurses and the staff are always under stress. The King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital started special programme called Stress-Free on April 15, to reduce the tension on the healthcare staff. Patients and their relatives allege doctors do not talk to them properly and behave very rudely. Due to which, the doctor-patient relationship gets hampered. Over the past few years, trust of the patients on doctors has also reduced.
Considering communication as an important issue, KEM Hospital started a “Medical Humanity” department to teach the doctors, how to communicate with the patients.Dr Lopa Mehta, Head of the Medical Humanity department, said, intern and resident doctors know how to deal with the medical emergency. But they are not aware how to communicate with the patients’ relatives. Sometimes, a wrong word can aggravate the situation, and it may create misconceptions about doctors within the patients. “The main aim to start this department is to train doctors on how to handle patients’ relatives who keep asking several question when they are in a state of trauma,” said Dr Mehta.
Since the inception of the department, over 10,000 doctors have been trained in communication skills.“It is the first time that the MBBS syllabus has been introduced with a subject called doctor-patient communication. It will surely help doctors understand the circumstances and how to communicate with the patients. A doctor can be good, but if he doesn’t know the communication then it is of no use,” opined Dr Mehta.