Description: Dramatize a professional, interpersonal experience to illustrate four points regarding interpersonal skills. An actual or hypothetical situation may be used for example. Any actual situation should be presented as a hypothetical one, with any names and other identifying information changed to protect anonymity. Identify a) if the situation is with a patient or a colleague, b) the various interpersonal skills used, c) how the skills used either positively or negatively contributed to the situation, d) how the skills might have been improved and/or anticipated results of the improvement, to contribute to both to the art and science of healthcare practice.
Let’s break the assignment down so that it is easier to comprehend. Think of a time when you experienced an interpersonal situation (Please use the interpersonal skills discussed in the seminar or you own) in your work environment when it involved a patient or fellow employee or both. If you cannot think of a scenario, you may create one.
1) Discuss your scenario explaining the situation and the parties involved
2) Discuss the various interpersonal skills that were used in the scenario (the assignment asks for four interpersonal skills i.e. communication, patience, decision making, etc).
3) Did the skills used in the scenario contributed to the situation (positively or negatively)?
4) Discuss how the interpersonal skills used in your scenario could be improved and how the skills contribute to healthcare.
Write a hypothesis, identify an appropriate experimental control group, and create an experimental design to solve a problem: Identify one specific interpersonal skill problem related to healthcare (example; language barriers between clinicians and patients, cultural differences, etc.). Suppose you wanted to design a scientific study to investigate this problem. Identify the following components of the study; hypothesis, control group, experimental design. Discuss obstacles might exist to using a scientific approach in this kind of investigation?
Let’s break down part two. Let’s say you are going to design a scientific study to investigate a problem. You will need a hypothesis, a control group, and an experimental design.
1) Write a hypothesis using one specific interpersonal skill problem related to healthcare.
Formalized Hypotheses example: If poor performance of clinicians is related to lack of communication in the clinic, then clinicians with exposure to effective communication will perform at a higher level.
2) Identify your control group for this study. In the example hypothesis I gave you above, the control group would be the clinicians in this particular scenario.
3) Discuss your experimental design.
In an experiment, we deliberately change one or more process variables (or factors) in order to observe the effect the changes have on one or more response variables. An experiment design is a blueprint of the procedure that enables the researcher to test his hypothesis by reaching valid conclusions about relationships between independent and dependent variables. In my example the variables are clinician’s performance and communication. Clinician’s performance (independent variable) is dependent on communication (dependent). There are many types of experimental designs. I have provided you an example of an experimental design.