Dec 06, 2024  
2023-2024 WWCC College Catalog 
    
2023-2024 WWCC College Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

MEDA 115 - Communications for Healthcare Professionals


Credits: 4
LEC hours per week: 4
This course emphasizes the importance of communication in a medical setting. Students learn professional and therapeutic communication skills to increase the effectiveness of their client interactions. This includes communicating with clients from different cultures, social, ethnic, generational, sexual identity, and gender identity groups. Topics include the effects cultural influences, biases, generational differences, and prejudices may have on healthcare interaction and outcomes.
Course Outcomes:
  • Identify types of verbal and nonverbal communication across cultural, social, ethnic and generational groups.
  • Demonstrate active listening.
  • Respond to nonverbal communication.
  • Identify challenges in communication, communication barriers, and techniques for overcoming these with a diverse population, including different age groups.
  • Identify the steps in the sender-receiver process of communication.
  • Identify coping mechanisms for a diverse client population.
  • Identify subjective and objective information.
  • Identify the basic concepts of the following theories of:
    • Maslow
    • Erikson
    • Kubler-Ross
  • Define terms such as race, ethnicity, culture, stereotype, racism, cultural competence, bicultural, bilingual, among others.
  • Identify issues associated with diversity as it relates to patient care.
  • Identify interview techniques appropriate to diverse cultural, social, ethnic, and generational groups.
  • Apply the guidelines for interpreter services and other language services.
  • Compare and contrast the roles, rights and expectations of employers, employees, and healthcare customers as related to cultural differences and to conflict.
Course Topics:
  1. Introduction to therapeutic communication skills with diverse clients
  2. Roadblocks to therapeutic communication and workplace communication
  3. The communication cycle
  4. Active listening
  5. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  6. Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development
  7. Kubler-Ross’s Theory of Five Stages of Grief
  8. Interview techniques with diverse clients
  9. Guidelines for providing language access
  10. Medical terminology and lay terms in healthcare interactions
Course Attribute(s): PT Human Relations, PT Oral Communication