The need to teach non-verbal skills with multicultural sensitivity

ABSTRACT

The communication models that have been framed to guide medical practitioners through the determinative medical interview have primarily been conceived, evaluated and approved in the west. However, the student population at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad and Tobago, where this material is concentrated, come from a number of Caribbean countries, as far north as the Bahamas and as far south as Trinidad. Consequently, the faculty at St Augustine is a very diverse campus. Interaction and fusion among Caribbean cultures have facilitated a great deal of intra-and inter-cultural diversity in the region. The non-verbal communication skills that theorists advocate, however, often cannot be easily applied to the Caribbean context. As a result, health communication educators encounter a number of problems in implementing so-called Western-based non-verbal communication skills in the classroom. This chapter is based on data collected at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at UWI. Thirty-six registered year 1 students from eight Caribbean countries were selected from the class list and asked to participate in focus group discussion between individual Caribbean territories and that put forward by the Calgary-Cambridge Guide to the doctor-patient interview. Here, the results of this study and its implications for health communication education in the region are interrogated. Ultimately, the chapter develops an approach from which regional health communication educators and medical practitioners can draw to achieve cultural competence in the classroom and in Caribbean medical practice.