Communication Case

My communication preference is relationship driven and people orientated. Many physicians differ in their type of communication preference depending personality. My group has a combination of different preferences that make our group unique. As a lead physician, my most arduous task involves identifying each physician’s communication preferences and adapting my preference to mesh well with theirs.

The physicians in my group most often identify with action oriented versus content oriented with few that identify with technology oriented preferences. I will go through specific examples of each communication preference I have encountered, conflicts that have arisen and solutions to those conflicts.

My communication preference is relation driven and people orientated which allows me to directly interact with my fellow colleagues face to face. I feel my strengths include empathy, consistency, and honesty. Weaknesses include emotional attachments, directness, and at times overcritical.

My schedule currently allows me to work seven days on and seven days off. We work about 12 hours per day during our work week. I share my managing responsibilities with a fellow colleague that works on the opposite week. My colleagues communication preference is technology oriented. A specific example on where a conflict arises is with our sign out process. We are required by our group to sign out our patients to our counterparts once work is complete for that week. My preference is signing out in person to allow details to be discussed, questions to be asked and face to face contact with my colleague. My colleague prefers emailing a sign out list done once the final shift is complete. I feel that this is not personable, avoids contact and omits details. My colleague on the other hand feels that face to face interaction often leads to extended conversations, emotional attachments, and overall inconvenience. After discussions with my counterpart regarding our preferences, we ultimately made a compromise that appeased both of us. We decided that we need to combine both our preferences in order to resolve this conflict. Our Comprise allowed us to sign out our patients via email but our complicated and difficult cases we were required to discuss with each other in person or by phone. This comprise helped me understand that different people have different preferences and have to be willing to