Book Review: Communication Skills in Health and Social Care

Benard Moss is an Emeritus Professor from the Social Work Education and Spirituality department at Staffordshire University. The goal of the textbook is to enhance essential communication skills for students and team members to promote best practice. The textbook is aimed at social workers but reference to probation officers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, teachers, police officers, youth workers, advice workers, and faith community leaders is also included. Moss engages his readers with a witty, easy-to-read style that entices readers to think about each topicthrough practical scenarios. Throughout each chapter activities are incorporated creating an interactive book that allows readers to apply the concepts to practical situations they have or have not yet encountered.

 

Moss highlights important aspects of communication froma variety of situations such as “Breaking Bad News,” “Chairing Meetings,” or “Court Room.” The textbook reviews current research regarding these different topics on professional communication skills in health care settings. Adequate references are used for each section and suggested readings are identified for readers who are interested in learning more about a topic. The textbook refers to situations that occur in England but remains applicable for international interpretation, especially for English speaking regions such as Canada, United States,and Australia.

 

This textbook is designed for individuals who are beginning their journey in people-work to adopt necessary communication skills. Moss refers to people-workers as individuals who provide confidential assistance to individuals. Moss identifies that the textbook is as an overview of adequate communication in the health and social care profession. For individuals who require further understanding in an area of communication, Moss suggests other readings to assist the reader.

 

Each chapter follows a similar organization of topics.Chapters start with a paragraph overview of the general research on a topic, incorporates activities, provides examples of practical situations, and ends with a “Final Thoughts” section to review each of the main concepts. This format allows readers to digest the information.  The activities summarize the previous content and touch on proceeding paragraphs, allowing readers to build on the ideas presented. The examples provide suggested phrases to use in challenging situations to help the reader develop their own repertoire of professional wording. The “Final Thoughts” section brings all the concepts together in a short paragraph reminding readers of the key concepts. Each section ends with a list of other topics covered in the textbook that are directly related to the one discussed linking topics together appropriately.

 

Overall, Moss provides a useful guide for enhanced communication for individuals in the social and health care professions to apply the skills learned in this book to day-to-day interactions. The book is a concise overview that allows professionals to enhance their practice without spending extended time reviewing multiple textbooks. I readily recommend this to students, people-workers, and educators as a useful resource for enhancing collaborative communication.

 

Review by

Lorelle Kerik, Registered Kinesiologist, Lifemark Health Centre

Communication Skills in Health and Social Care (3rd Edition)

Bernard Moss. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015

222 pages, $52.95 (paperback) $138.95 (hardcover) – Canadian Dollars

ISBN: 978-1-4739-1276-2

Book Review: Leadership and Collaboration: Further Developments for InterprofessionalEducation

This book aims to provide students, educators and clinicians alike the latest advances in international leadership in interprofessional education, practice and collaboration. Fifteen chapters, written by a variety of authors from different healthcare professions and nine countries combine to produce a very practical guide for readers of all types.

 

Leadership theories are defined and connections are made to collaborative practice. The book highlights the importance of appropriate leadership styles for successful interprofessional collaboration, which results in higher quality patient care and efficiencies. The authors address the increasing need to recognize that health care demands cannot be met without changing how healthcare workers are educated and practice.  

 

Students and educators will discover a well-organized text with useful tables to help navigate the book by country, leadership model or topic.  A directory of additional readings is provided along with numerous references, a list of helpful definitions and a detailed index to assist in furthering one’s learning. Clinicians will find practical examples of implementation of interprofessional collaborative projects in both academic and health care settings, along with the challenges and lessons learned which help guide one's own project development.  

 

The book is divided into three distinct parts allowing readers to access topics as desired.  Part one delineates theoretical frameworks on the development of interprofessional leadership and interprofessional practice internationally, part two is clinical in nature outlining stories of collaborative developments taking place in a variety of countries, and part three provides additional stories of recent innovations both in leadership and interprofessional collaboration.

 

The editors have produced an extremely well organized and structured text. The chapters are authored by different writers offering a variety of writing styles, perspectives, and levels of detail. Overall this book provides an excellent mix of theoretical and practical information linking leadership theories, interprofessional collaboration and healthcare delivery from an international perspective. Contents assist healthcare students, educators and practitioners to address emerging healthcare needs for greater interprofessional collaborative education and practice with the ultimate goal of improving healthcare delivery worldwide.

 

Reviewed by

Shelly Bercovitch, BSc(PT), MHM (candidate), McMaster University, Acting Chief Physiotherapy, The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, Canada 

 

Leadership and Collaboration: Further Developments forInterprofessional Education

Dawn Forman, Marion Jones & Jill Thistlethwaite, editors

New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015

257 pages, $115.00

ISBN: 978-1-137-43207-0

 

 

 

 

Conference Report: Developing Multiprofessional Health Educators of the Future

“Developing Multiprofessional Health Educators of the Future” was a radical new conference that brought together healthcare workers from across the range of professional backgrounds, levels of experience and educational modalities. It considered multiple good practice initiatives for healthcare educators, trainees and students.  

The conference was planned jointly between the London and the South East Local Education and TrainingBoards (LETB) and was held on 7 July 2015 at the Kia Oval conference centre in London. The organising committee included a healthcare scientist, medical education fellows, nurse educators, Shared Service staff and a HEKSS programme manager. All 300 places were fully booked within weeks of registration opening.

Professor Ian Cumming, Chief Executive of Health Education England, opened the conference. He strongly reiterated the commitment to more multiprofessional training in the future.  This was followed by an inspiring talk by Laura Sherlock, a patient educator from King’s College London, who highlighted the vital role that patients play in clinical education and the need for more meaningful engagement to maximise this resource.  Professor Scott Reeves rounded off the day with a forward-looking summary of the state of interprofessional education and promising avenues for further exploration.

Alongside these exciting keynotes were over ten parallel workshops, face-paced ‘laser-coaching’ and a poster display of a range of successful education projects conducted by delegates.  The very best abstract submissions were selected to present to the whole conference audience, who then voted for their favourite to receive a prize.

The day was a great success and demonstrated the level of enthusiasm for such events that bring together a wide range of professionals to share their passion for clinical education in all its multifarious forms. It is hoped that this will become a regular feature of the clinical education calendar.