ABSTRACT: You've just given your hand-off report to the next level of care provider. The receiving provider asks the patient one question, and - suddenly - your patient's story has completely changed! You find yourself wanting to exclaim, "He didn't tell me that!" or "She denied that when I asked her about it!"

Even the most experienced emergency care providers often obtain inaccurate or incomplete patient information, simply because no one has ever trained them how to effectively interview patients. This problem is not peculiar to prehospital care providers! Indeed, rarely are pre- or inhospital emergency care providers trained to fully understand the ART of accurate patient interviews.

During this exciting new presentation, Charly discusses communication difficulties faced when questioning any sort of emergency patient; identifies common misunderstandings caused by asking traditional ("bad") medical questions; how to avoid asking traditional ("bad") medical questions; and provides useful tips for obtaining complete and accurate information from any patient - even from the most reluctant describer!

This presentation provides valuable instruction for ALL prehospital and inhospital emergency care providers.

Charly's Patient Interview Techniques include:

1. The "Zen" of Open-Ended Questions.
2. "Chest Pain" pitfalls: The dangers of inappropriately labeling patients, and how to avoid this "habit."
3. "Radiating Pain": WHO decides whatz "radiating" and how?
4. Shunning the "LEASH":
   How to avoid "leading" your patient to complain of things she/he is NOT experiencing.
5. Getting rid of the "T-WORD":
   How using the word "try" promotes "failure" - and what to use in its place.
6. Crowbar Techniques: How to "pry" accurate information from patients who are divinely inspired NOT to identify complaints or provide specific descriptions.
7. Medication Madness: Bad ("traditional!") medication-questioning habits vs. questions that will yield more accurate and complete medication information!

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: After attending this presentation, participants will:

1. recognize the incredible advantage of using "open-ended" questions,
   and become comfortable creating them.
2. recognize the pitfalls of inappropriately labeling patients with chief complaints
   that they haven't really complained of.
3. understand why identification of a complaint as "radiating" is the provider's responsibility -
   not the patient's - and how to question the patient accordingly.
4. develop an awareness of how providers "lead" patients (putting words into the patient's mouth) into complaining of symptoms they aren't actually experiencing, and how to avoid the misdiagnosis traps that such misinformation causes.
5. learn to avoid using the "T-word" ("try");
   and recognize what to use in its place, also learning how to promote successful patient responses.
6. learn to use specific techniques, words, and phrases to "pry" accurate information out of patients who are reluctant (if not downright unwilling!) to identify complaints or provide descriptions.
7. understand the history of how bad medication-question habits were programmed into all care providers, and use better phrasing to obtain the most accurate and complete medication information available.

Newly updated and expanded Half-Day and Full-Day Workshops
including ALL Patient Communication subjects are also available!

Special Note! In September of 1998, the Internet EMS "webzine,"
MERGInet.com began publishing a series of my communication articles, entitled,
"The Foundation of Patient Communication."

I wrote these articles using text from the handouts that accompany my various patient communication presentations. ALL of these articles can be found on my Web Site's,

1. The outline for this workshop significantly varies from program to program.
   Charly will design an outline specifically to meet YOUR needs and requests ...
   One that will fit within the time frame you are able to afford this vital subject.

Email Charly at: c-d-miller@neb.rr.com
Those are hyphens/dashes between the "c" and "d" and "miller"