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Monday, January 16, 2012

Top 5 Qualities of a Patients' Counselor.


Patient counselor is the ‘Abrecadarian Bridge’ between an ailing soul and its journey to health. A patient counselor can make much difference in the overall outcome of a patient’s odyssey in the hospital. People have different levels of subjectivity, different levels of patience and different levels of knowledge. Obviously, it is difficult to trace out 2 individuals with akin attitude. So a counselor’s task becomes as diverse as it can be; and its all a mental game, where winning is defined by the outlook and a loss can be cataclysmic.

  1. Counselor must always appear as compassionate as possible. A ruckus-filled mind is more likely to respond favorably to a seraphic soul than to anyone else. So try to peep in the tunnels of patient's psyche; look out for the factors that are troubling him the most and then make him realize that you really understand him, and care for him.
  2. Knowing the tit-a-bit of complex medical jargons also helps a great deal. The patient must not be rendered a piece of advice that is in contradiction to the prevailing medical concepts. It happens many a time that the patient turns to the counselor to have greater knowledge of disease and its treatment method. It happens mainly because either the patient is shy enough to ask direct questions to the treatment provider or the doctor leaves a lot of information between sentences and the patient’s queries suffer a boomerang’s trajectory.
  3. To maintain the patient-doctor axis in equilibrium is one of the foremost responsibilities of an adept patient counselor. Once this axis is in symmetry, the work happens with the best pace. Learn to efficiently wipe out the fluff that would be of no use to the patient and the ultimate treatment process.
  4. Counselor must be very patient. Troubled patients tend to loose their cool, and also tend to develop aberrational thought-process. In such a spree, the counselor can be at the receiving end of heat words. Such situations are not very uncommon and must be handled with the maturity of a sage and the wisdom of a geek. Remember, the kind acts never fizzle out; the repercussions would be there for you to feel and revel in the glory of inner solace.
  5. It helps to keep your self in the patient’s state of mind at times. You can not just think out quickly of the best mode of response, but you can also identify the most potential stumbles that are troubling the patient. Learning has to be constant to keep evolving the ways that help the patients multi-dimensionally.

When you counsel a patient, put your world in the process. You are entrusted to calm down aplenty agitated nerves and you must practice the most valuable principles, the principles of hope, help and trust. Your role is important. You can put your best foot forward to help your bit in preserving the sacrosanct nature of medical profession by filtering out the granules of uncertainty and doubt from the patients’ minds. You can abridge the negativity right there by early identification and disseminate seeds of hope, knowledge and compassion to ensure that the miracle-working force of faith starts setting in. It is every doctor’s dream to get a patient counselor with angelic demeanor and sanguine outlook.

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