How your tone makes or breaks your patient communication

There are three parts of patient communication.  The words you use are only five percent of your communication.  Body posture is another 40 or 50 percent of your communication.  The remaining 45 to 55 percent of your patient communication is your tone of voice.

Most doctors spend so much time on scripts, flyers and pamphlets, but these are just a minor part of educating your patients.  Books, flyers and pamphlets should be used as supporting material to re-enforce your conversation with a patient.  They do not replace you initiating and enhancing your patient-doctor relationship with a strong focused conversation.

One of the most subtle but powerful parts of the patient relationship is your ability to match the tone of your patients while you talk to them.  If you don’t match your patient’s tone and use their words during your conversation your education will usually fall on deaf ears.

Think about it.  When you begin a conversation with someone and their tone is way too upbeat for you, don’t you just want to run away?  The same feeling occurs when you begin talking to somebody who is totally depressed.  You don’t want them to bring you down so you move on as fast as you can.

So the key to any successful patient conversation is to do your best to match your patient’s tone and words when you enter the treatment room.  Once you match their tone then you can begin the process of moving them up or down the tone scale depending on the situation.

You will be amazed at how much better your patients will get what you are trying to tell them when you begin to match their tone.  People love to talk to people just like themselves.  Your job is to become just like them, talk just like them and sound just like them.  Then you can use your words carefully to educate them about what you can really do for them. 

So really focus on your own tonality with your patients and watch your recommendations being followed more completely and effectively.