3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course provides an in-depth exploration of communication in healthcare. Students will examine both the routines of everyday clinical communication—such as agenda setting, information gathering, and shared decision-making—and the complex, emotionally charged encounters that arise in the face of behavior change, serious illness, and end-of-life discussions. The course integrates scholarship and practice: students will gain exposure to communication research methods, including descriptive approaches and conversation analysis, while working with dialogue and engaging in experiential exercises to better understand and cultivate respect, empathy, epistemic reciprocity, and listening. Topics include motivational interviewing, emotional communication, physician self-disclosure, informed consent, the impact of communication and relationships on patient outcomes, and how social relationships, identity, power, and inequality are manifested in interaction.