In any consultation involving health professionals there are two ‘actors’ the patient and the health professional. During that meeting each will have something to say and will say it in a specific way. The tone, the emphasis and the volume of their speech will offer information. The actor’s limbs and torso will reflect their thoughts and feelings during the meeting. Their hand gestures and their head movements will betray emotion.

These aspects are not be formally taught at medical school or at least not in the way that actors are taught their craft. And yet how the doctor plays their role in the consult will impact the outcome of that meeting with the patient.

As doctors or health professionals we can’t anticipate how the ‘other’ actor in the meeting will choose to present themselves in the meeting but we can learn to become much more aware of our own behaviour. How we position ourselves, the movements of our limbs, our facial expression, our gestures, our non-verbal response to the information received from the other. In most meetings we have very little time to make an impact in the desired direction and a failure to become self aware will undermine our efforts to be of help.

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