Miscommunication in Medicine: A podcast with Shunichi Nakagawa, Abby Rosenberg and Don Sullivan
episode
GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
49 min
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 8 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the definition of miscommunication in cancer care?
Welcome to the J Pop Podcast, this is Eric Guidara.
This is Alex Smith.
And Alex, I wanna get this right. There should be no miscommunication about this. Who's on on a podcast today?
Very good. We have Don Sullivan, who's Associate Professor of Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. Don, welcome to JerryPal. Thanks for having me. And we're delighted to welcome back Abby Rosenberg, who's Chief of Pediatric Palliative Care at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Director of Palliative Care at Boston Children's Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Welcome back, Abby.
Thank you. So I'm glad to be here.
And we're also delighted to welcome back Shunichi Nakagawa, who's Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Inpatient Palliative Care at Columbia University Medical Center. Shunichi, welcome back to Jerry Powell. Thank you for having me.
Well, we got a uh a great podcast that we're gonna be talking about miscommunication in medicine and surgical settings and a lot of different settings. But before we go into that topic, I think somebody has a song request for Alex.
I do. Uh Hello Goodbye by the Beatles.
Why did you pick
that, Don? Well, it's a song about duality, you know, balancing the positives and negatives. And I think it's a important concept when you talk about communication. Great. All right. Here's a little My daughters love it too.
You say yes and I say no and you say stop. I say go, go, go. Oh no, you say goodbye, and I say hello. Hello, hello, I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello.
That was fabulous. How old are your daughters, Don?
Uh eight and four.
Yeah. Is there a reason they love it besides the obvious parental child? Uh it's it's a great
children's song. It's easy to hear the words and and pronounce them, right?
So let's dive into this topic before we talk about miscommunication. Would love to hear briefly from each of you How or why did you get interested in this topic at all of just around patient communication, patient doctor communication, patient provider communication? Don, you gave us you started us off with a song What got you interested in this?
Yeah, you know, I've been um doing, you know, palliative care research for a while now and a little bit focused on communication, particularly in the the lung cancer space and Doing some qualitative research, interviewing, you know, patients and clinicians. It just seems like sometimes there's a real, you know, disconnect. Uh and, you know, the patients don't fully understand um, you know, some of the next steps in treatments. Um, and so from my standpoint, I just said, you know, how can I improve this? You know, and and then From my own clinical background as an intensivist, um I have a lot of uh experience, you know, talking to some of my patients, but often their families too. And and communication is such a big part of what we do in the intensive care unit.
And so, you know, just part of trying to better myself and and I think it's a really um a topic that deserves a lot of attention. Yeah.
How about you, Abby?
Um, I completely agree, Don. You know, I think we in palliative care understand so well that words matter and we practice this skill and we really try to be precise with the words that we use. So The topic has always resonated with me. I'll I'll share a personal anecdote that was r relevant to this essay that we wrote. And that is m my dad a long time ago had a medical emergency where he suddenly lost vision in one eye. And long story short, he had a Acute retinal detachment. And so they rushed him to surgery. And I will never forget he came out of the operating room and the surgeon was meeting with him and my mom and me, and the surgeon said Great news. It was a successful surgery. The retina is reattached.
And my dad said, Great. Well, when will I be able to see again? And the surgeon said, Oh, no, you're not gonna be able to see again, but the retina is detached. And it was this remarkable moment where as a physician, I completely understood the technical success of the surgery.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the definition of miscommunication in cancer care?
0:00–6:09
2
How did each guest become interested in medical communication?
6:09–14:44
3
What real‑world examples illustrate miscommunication between clinicians and families?
14:44–21:51
4
Why do phrases like “we got it all” or “palliative care” cause confusion?
21:51–27:45
5
How can clinicians reframe language to avoid misunderstanding (e.g., “need” vs. “want”)?
27:45–34:26
6
What strategies (teach‑back, checking understanding) help prevent miscommunication?
34:26–40:31
7
How does cultural context (e.g., Japanese vs. US communication styles) affect patient interactions?
40:31–45:54
8
What practical changes would the guests make if they had a magic wand for clinical communication?
45:54–49:13
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
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