Communication isn't just about what we do as practitioners!

In this first lesson Alex explores the goals of communication in clinical practice, explaining it not only from the practitioner perspective, but from the often forgotten patient perspective.

He then discusses how many common clinical practices may act as barriers to both the patient and practitioner from achieving these goals.

In this section Alex explains how every human encounter where we're trying to influence someone into performing any type of action, we're actually selling to people!

He explains how 'selling' got a bad name from bad faith actors, how sales can be seen through a modern lens, including the concept of selling non-financial resources such as effort, and how we can use the psychology of sales to be more persuasive in clinical practice.

This forms the basis of his approach to communication in clinical practice and he presents a framework that can be directly applied to your clinical practice.

In this section Alex goes through 4 skills he uses on a daily basis that have completely changed how he consults and the feedback he receives, that didn't exactly fit in our previously sections.

They all work with and build on what we've gone through in previous lectures and are really easy to implement!

In this section Alex explains how the best way to run a clinical conversation is treating it like a back and forward conversation and explains a framework of how we can achieve while still gaining all the appropriate information to be safe and effective practitioners.

He also discusses a number of skills that are helpful at eliciting more information using this method compared to our traditional and interrogative patient interview.

Rapport and trust are major contributors to whether patients will believe what you're saying and being able to have deeper, often more difficult conversations about someone's condition.

In this section Alex explains the key components of building trust and rapport in clinical practice, helping you understand what behaviour can build and also damage your relationships with patients.

Shared decision making is the process of coming alongside the patient and working with them collaboratively to reach a decision about their care that makes the most sense for them. This is an incredibly powerful skill to develop, as keeping the patient engaged in their care is the most powerful way to build treatment compliance.

While many of us will be doing a form of this in one way or another, Alex presents a framework that's easily implemented in clinical practice to help guide how we can involve the patient in shaping what their care looks like and how we can start to deal with people who don't want to make a decision.

In this section Alex outlines some quick and easy questions you can ask yourself and your patient before educating your patients to make your education more effective!

In this section Alex goes through the study by Mike Stewart called "Sticks and Stones: The Impact of Language in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation".

This paper outlines that language plays an important role in how people make sense of their body and their experiences of pain and how we can think of and alter our language to produce better outcomes!

This topic might seem like it is from left field. But behaviour change is one of the most important outcomes that can be achieved from our communication!

The whole reason we communicate with patients is to provide information and advice that will lead them to changing their behaviour and way they're responding to pain and injury.

Want them to do their stretches or exercises? That's behaviour change!

Want them to follow through on a referral you've given? That's behaviour change!

Some patients come to us already at a stage of changing their behaviour where us simply providing the information on how to change is enough for them to enact change. But many patients attend in a stage where they aren't even contemplating the need for change to improve their health, pain or injury. Therefore we are part of the process for helping them make that change!

In this section Alex will go through the process of all humans go through when looking to change their behaviour and how we as practitioners can understand each stage and adapt our approach and communication to better facilitate behaviour change in our patients. He will also discuss Motivational Interviewing, an evidence-based communication style that helps guides people to utilise their own motivation for change to drive healthier behaviours.