Client Communication Rotation = Fight Club?

The first rule of Client Communication rotation is: You don't talk about Client Communication rotation.**

The second rule of Client Communication rotation... well, you get the picture.

I am pleased to announce that I have thus far survived 40% of this semester's much-dreaded week-long Client Communication Skills (CCS) rotation!

(trumpets sound)

Now, let's be honest.

As much as I would like to be able to commiserate with my being-videotaped-impaired, communication-phobic, distressed and tearful classmates with the misfortune to experience this rotation before me, I would be lying if I told you that my rotation so far has been an absolutely fantastic experience.

The truth is out. Don't tell my friends, or I won't have any.

I think I approached CCS with the following attitude:

"I am going to go into this rotation being able to say that I came in trying to keep a positive attitude, but I am really not going to have a good time."

But.... the things we've done so far have been really beneficial.

(Really, I don't mean to sound so astonished. I'm truly excited that this hasn't turned out to be an absolute waste of 20 hours of my time.)

Yesterday we did some semi-hokey stuff, talking about feelings, what we did over the summer, how to ask open-ended questions and let your clients know that you're empathizing with them.

(Oh, and the instructor started off the week by saying "Good morning" to the class of 25 students repeatedly until she got a satisfactory chorus of "Good morning"s in return. Talk about a surefire way to come off as condescending and make your students feel like 8 year olds. Thankfully, things went uphill from there.)

Today was the first of two days of "simulated client interactions." The vet school hires actors to come in and portray clients bringing in their dog, cat, horse, or (if you're unlucky) hedgehog to see us students. The actors also work with the state's medical school, doing the same thing pretending to be actual medical patients so the med students can practice communication and history-taking.

Let me tell you, these actors are amazingly good. Invariably, in each of the 5 simulations it was a matter of moments before everybody forgot that the "client" wasn't really some person bringing in a sick pet.

We were divided into 5 groups of 5 students. Each small group had a "coach" (all were vets, two from the vet school and three from private practices). Some of the newer coaches got their own coaches who were coaching them on how to coach us.

Each student got 45 minutes for their simulated interaction:

-- In the first 5 minutes, the interviewing student got to find out what the case was about (owner's name, pet's name, breed, age, and the apparent reason for the visit [wellness exam, behavioral problem, medical problem, etc.]). Among the group of students, we discussed things that may come up during the interview, what the interviewing student's objectives were, how they were going to approach certain subjects, etc.

-- The next 15 minutes comprised the actual interview. The client was seated in the exam room (with 1 or 2 coaches in there too). The other 4 students were in the observation room next to the exam room, which has a one-way mirror looking in on the exam room. The student entered the room, introduced herself, and started the interview. You got to pause, take breaks, or rewind if you needed a minute to gather your thoughts, needed some advice from your coach, or realized that something didn't go well and you had something you wanted to try again.

-- The next 20 minutes were "debriefing" -- first the interviewing student discusses how she felt the interview went. Then the 4 observing students take turns critiquing different facets of the interview technique (initiation, gathering information, logical flow, etc.). Then the actor/client gives their feedback on how they felt as the one in the conversation, what they liked and didn't etc.

-- The last 5 mninutes are a discussion of what everybody learned from the case.

**The Fight Club rules (I named them that, not the rotation instructors) mean that we are bound by the honor code (and it's even extra-official, since they made us sign something) to not discuss the simulated case scenarios with anybody who hasn't taken the rotation yet. And that's with good reason -- as they point out, the learning experience is a lot less effective if you know ahead of time what sort of situation you're getting into, what hidden information is there for you to discover if you make your client feel comfortable enough to open up to you, etc.

I ended up going last among my group of 5 -- not really by choice, but the first 3 people kept volunteering to go next, then the last person and I flipped a coin to see who would go 4th and 5th.

It was a very surreal experience. During the past few weeks when I've been thinking ahead to upcoming rotations and remembering that I had CCS during week 6, I'd been getting progressively more nervous about it. During our initial Pet Hospice volunteer training during fall semester freshman year, we had a similar training session where we role-played with actor clients about how to talk about their ill pet, how to start conversations about quality of life and euthanasia, etc. -- and that experience was pretty awkward.

But I was surprised when I showed up this morning and really didn't feel that anxious about the whole thing. Sure, I didn't want to make a fool of myself, but everyone in my group was very supportive of each other and good at giving plenty of positive feedback along with a few suggestions for improvement. Yesterday as the instructors discussed today's exercise, they were very clear about the fact that none of our grade for this rotation comes from how well we perform in the simulated interactions -- our grade is all about a reflective paper we write, and how well we are able to analyze what we did well, what needs improvement, where our strengths are, phrasing that sounded good, moments that felt awkward and how they could be made more comfortable, etc. That really took the pressure off and made me feel like if I totally got tongue-tied or off-track or distracted during my simulated interview, it would all be ok.

CCS really has a terrible reputation among the upper-level vet students, and I don't think that's deserved. I know that some people really have a problem with the more "touchy-feely" style of communication, for whatever reason, but I think the next 3 days just might make a believer out of me... stay tuned!

P.S. If you have read this entire post, holy cow, I'm impressed! Way to be a dedicated reader! Here's hoping you find my rantings, ramblings, and reflections interesting and not just completely self-absorbed...