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The Importance Of Communication

Decent Essays

Communication is an important part in all human’s lives. This is clearly expressed in Tim Dolighan’s cartoon “Communication.” This photo demonstrates to the viewers how vital communication is in a hospital setting. The author is able to get his point across through the use of pathos by using humor to display the importance of communication and by demonstrating the consequences when there is a lack of communication. Not many people realize the consequences of poor communication. There is usually a lot of stress in operating/emergency rooms in hospitals and the pace is usually very fast. Without communication, there is potential for a disaster to happen and in the worst-case scenario, this could cost someone their life. With the cartoon …show more content…

To prevent further mishaps, doctors need to realize the importance of communicating with their patients and their co-workers.
Negligence in hospitals occurs a lot more than one would think. Mishandling patients is one of the top injuries to occur in a hospital setting. As stated in a Fierce Healthcare article, “Communication problems were a contributing factor in 7,149 cases (30 percent) of 23,000 medical malpractice claims filed between 2009 and 2013” (Budryk, Zack, Fierce Healthcare). These problems lead to 1.7 billion dollars in hospital costs and 1,744 deaths. Even though this is such a high number, these statistics are only a smidgeon as there are plenty communication related injuries that occurred that were not filed as a malpractice claim. What is the cause of all of these mistakes? Is it the hospitals fault for not attempting to improve communication strategies? Is it just the doctors making mistakes? Whatever the cause may be, why aren’t hospitals and healthcare facilities fixing this? When Frank Federico, vice president for patient safety at the institute for healthcare improvement, was asked about all of the communication related injuries he said, “We've been working on this for a long time, and it still continues to be a big problem” (Federico, Frank, Fierce Healthcare). Whatever the causes are of all the communicated related issues, physician practices and hospitals must make it a priority to improve

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