If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda

Author:Alan Alda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

EVONNE KAPLAN-LISS

There are dozens of reports of advantages that flow from this kind of personal connection—too many to ignore. But you can’t just tell people to be more empathic. It takes a skilled communicator to teach it—like Dr. Kaplan-Liss.

For a young woman, Evonne Kaplan-Liss has had an extraordinary life. She was a child actress with a small part in the movie Annie Hall. At about nine, she auditioned to play the lead role in the Broadway musical Annie, and came in second to Andrea McCardle. In her teenage years, she needed medical attention and her doctors recommended an operation that was “state of the art.” She and her parents agreed to the procedure, assuming state of the art meant “best possible.” What they didn’t know was that, instead, the doctors were using the term to describe a procedure that had hardly ever been tried on children. “State of the art” just meant relatively new.

It was a learning experience in poor communication that led to twenty-one surgeries over the next thirty years.

Evonne studied journalism and became a journalist for a while, then switched to medicine and became a pediatrician. She now trains medical professionals across the country. Using her experience as an actor, journalist, doctor, and even a patient on the operating table, Evonne is a formidable speaker. After one of her talks, an anesthesiologist who works with cataract patients wrote her and said she had changed her practice with just one piece of advice from Evonne: “Don’t start off with all the details. Get to the bottom line. ‘You’re going to be fine. I’m going to make you comfortable. You’re not going to be in any pain.’

“Previously,” the anesthesiologist wrote, “I would ask the patient if they ‘did okay with anesthesia’ and would immediately proceed into what they could expect. I felt like I was doing well because of the detail I was providing; who else spent the time doing that? (Aren’t I wonderful…)

“Now,” she wrote, “I start the speech with, ‘I’m your anesthesia doctor and I’m here to keep you safe and comfortable.’ I swear to God, the patients visibly relax when I tell them this—and only then do I discuss the specifics.”

This anesthesiologist has also asked the whole OR team to change the way they speak to patients. Evonne read to me from her letter: “For example, instead of saying ‘I’m going to drape your face,’ now we say, ‘I’ll be placing this light cover over your eye to protect it.’ ”

Evonne looked up at me, her eyes flashing: “Right? What would you rather hear? ‘I’m going to protect your eye,’ or ‘I’m going to put a drape over your head?’ Which is what I heard twenty-one times.”

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