Transcript
Announcer:
You’re listening to Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Darilyn Moyer, who’s the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Physicians. She’ll be discussing how we can approach patient hesitancy around vaccination and sustain trust during difficult conversations. Here’s Dr. Moyer now.
Dr. Moyer:
I think we're in a really challenging time. We're at historic lows for vaccination rates. What's really interesting is that the data is telling us that even though public trust has declined in public health authorities at the local, regional, and national level, we still see that many patients trust their primary practitioners who they have a longitudinal relationship with.
I would say to those practitioners, hang in there. You may not get to “yes” on the first conversation when patients do not want to accept your recommendation for whatever it is. I have found in the course of my practice that being curious and finding out what that is about is really important because, once again, it has to do with the lived experience of that person.
I'll give one example. I remember a woman in my practice who didn't want to get a mammogram, but she clearly had an age indication, and when I asked her about it, she said, “Well, my sister went for a mammogram, and it must have given her cancer because they told her she had breast cancer after she got the mammogram.” She thought that the mammogram gave her breast cancer. She did not understand the purpose of the mammogram, which was to screen for breast cancer. And once I explained that to her, she had this “aha” moment because she really thought that the test was what gave her the disease rather than what found the disease.
I know these conversations are really challenging. And my message to our beloved primary care practitioners out there is to hang in there, be curious, hear what the patients have to say, continue to build the relationship, and continue to stay in those conversations. I have had many conversations that ended up being very positive in terms of outcomes with patients.
But at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to get to “yes” with everyone for the care that you're going to recommend for them. You have to do what you can for folks and be satisfied in doing the best you can. I think, unfortunately, as practitioners we always reflect on the negative and the things that didn't happen, and sometimes, we just need to say, “Wow, I did have a few wins today because I was able to help x, y, and z patients” and reflect on those a little bit too.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Darilyn Moyer sharing practical communication strategies to help patients navigate decision making. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
