Communication Skills for Foreign and Mobile Medical Professionals

Around the world, the number of internationally mobile medical professionals is steadily increasing, posing potential difficulties for the good communication with patients and colleagues that is vital to satisfactory outcomes and personal professional success. Communication Skills for Foreign and Mobile Medical Professionals is an evidence-based communication resource book designed for all medical professionals who work in foreign countries, cultures, and languages. It offers a wealth of insights into doctor-patient communication, structured around the different phases of the consultation. The proposed strategies and tips will raise the reader’s awareness of important recurring issues in face-to-face interactions and improve his or her ability to deal with them effectively. Common misunderstandings between doctors and patients with a different cultural/linguistic background are discussed in depth. Throughout, the emphasis is on patient-oriented medicine. The modular structure of the book will ensure quick and easy retrieval of information. Communication Skills for Foreign and Mobile Medical Professionals will be of benefit to a wide range of medical professionals, from senior nursing staff through to heads of department, in multilingual or intercultural contexts. It will also be of value to human resource managers, language trainers, and cultural mediators.?

Eddy Vanagt – developed a keen interest in the nature of medical communication during his life as a cardiologist at different hospitals in the Netherlands and Belgium. Over the past 10 years, while supervising and guiding an international group of interns at Antwerp Hospital Network, he compiled strategies and tips from the current literature with the help of feedback from the University of Antwerp’s Medical Skills Lab staff and input from partners in Berlin, Maastricht, Ancona, and Gothenburg. Kris Van de Poel – University of Antwerp / Applied Language Studies – specialises in curriculum and syllabus design for professional and academic purposes. She developed the resource book’s overall format and approach, relying on her teaching and training experience with both foreign and mobile medical professionals, and her research on this group’s needs. Ulrike Schrimpf - Charite International Cooperation / Charite International Academy - has co-developed the intercultural component of this book drawing from years of involvement in teaching, developing, and publishing materials for different German medical contexts (Communication for International Doctors, Communication for International Nurses, Medical English and Cross-Cultural Communication). Jessica Gasiorek - is doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studying interpersonal and intergroup communication, focusing on communication accommodation and its consequences across contexts. She has collaborated on projects related to this group, and has edited the language in this book for an international audience. All four authors have been collaborating on the European project Medics on the Move (2006-2012) for which they carried out research and developed interactive online and mobile communication tools across languages and cultures.