05-11-15

Health Literacy Seminar

Effective Story

Dr. Alan Feiler was my CPE instructor in Asheville, NC. During my time under Dr. Feiler’s superb mentorship, he showed me time and time again the extent to which good communication skills could positively affect the rapport that he had with his patients. I can think of many instances in which his patients probably felt very lucky to have a primary care physician such as Dr. Feiler. One instance comes to mind, when Dr. Feiler suspected that one of his patients had multiple sclerosis. She was the right age and had the classic symptoms.

Despite the patient’s limited education, vocabulary, and prior knowledge of this condition, Dr. Feiler was able to clearly communicate the nature of the disease, while also being sensitive and reassuring about the prognosis in the case that she indeed tested positive. He referred her to a radiologist and let her know that she’d probably have to get an MRI.

Dr. Feiler’s greatest attribute is his ability to accurately assess his patients’ level of knowledge and education, and clearly communicate with them. He has a gift. I hope to one day speak with the same effortless clarity he showed me time and time again. I probably won’t be as good, but I’ll keep trying.

Ineffective Story

Before I was transferred over to Dr. Feiler in Asheville, my first CPE preceptor was Dr. _______, in Hickory, NC. I actually forgot his name, but considering I’m using him for my ineffective story, it’s probably good that I leave out his name.

Dr. ________ was grumpy. My heart goes out to him because he was going through a divorce and clearly enduring a tough time in his life. I can’t say for certain whether his manner of interacting with his patients was always the same or if what I was seeing was a consequence of his personal tribulations, but from what I remember, he was very short and direct with all his patients. He saw twice the number of patients that Dr. Feiler saw, and he seemed to have very little patience of genuine interest in his patients.

I recall one patient, a 14-16 year old boy who clearly had pink eye. He literally walked in the patient’s room, took one look at his face, said, “yea that’s pink eye”, and immediately left to give his nurse instructions. Maybe the patient received antibiotic eyedrops? I actually don’t know because it happened so fast.

Another patient we saw was a 12 -14 year old boy, accompanied by his mother. The boy was probably 6’2” and easily over 300 pounds. The first thing Dr. ____________, said was, “you’re way too big, you need to lose weight.” The mother got very upset and began to make a fuss, so Dr. ______ asked me to leave so that he could deal with her alone. I’m not sure what was said, but the mother left with her boy in tears.

My experience with Dr. _________, was actually a good experience in that it was memorable. However, in the end, I asked for a transfer because he didn’t let me do enough, and he was also kind of a bummer to be around.