Professor Diana Slade and Dr Suzanne Eggins from ANU recognised that communication problems could contribute to poor outcomes for patients who are transferred from acute care in hospitals to primary care in homes. Their presentation offered a critical analysis of communication sequences leading up to discharge recorded between patients and healthcare staff in the emergency department of an Australian hospital. They also shared how linguists can be engaged to improve discharge communication practices.

NTU Professor May O. Lwin’s presentation was based on an assessment of families looking after those with disabilities. She shared on the development of a mobile-based system, which is being pilot-tested, that could generate social networks to provide psychological support for caregivers. Associate Professor Olga Zayts from HKU touched on how genetic professionals could contribute positively to counselling family members who lost their loved ones in sudden unexpected deaths.

LKCMedicine Professor Naomi Low-Beer recognised that communication is critical for effective teamwork as it affects not only the quality of working relationships but also patient safety. Her presentation focussed on how medical schools could innovate ways such as a medical education programme that could prepare young doctors-to-be for corroborative, patient-centred practice of the future. She also facilitated the two Stakeholder Panel sessions at the symposium.

In her presentation, Professor Elizabeth Rider from Harvard stressed that the human dimensions of care – core values and skilled communications – are fundamental to the practice of compassionate, safe relationship-care but yet they are not getting enough emphasis to make them central to every healthcare encounter. She proposed that the International Charter for Human Values in Healthcare could be a foundational framework for teaching and practice to remedy this.

There was also a poster presentation by the participants on topics such as Communication and Conflict Management, Cancer Fatalism and Career Prevention Behaviours in Singapore as well as an art exhibition and graphic medicine display created by medical and humanities students under the supervision of Assistant Professor Graham Matthews from the School of Humanities.

In his opening speech at the symposium, LKCMedicine Dean Professor James Best highlights the role communication plays in the School’s curriculum: “At LKCMedicine, we have always placed right from the start a very strong emphasis on communication in the medical education programme. It starts with the admission process, with the Multiple Mini Interviews that we weigh heavily on, much more than other medical schools here in Singapore. We see that as an objective test of communication skills. We also have Team-Based Learning which is based on having good communication skills, and we have an integrated medical communication component running right through the five years in the school’s curriculum.”