The nurse is always right, the patient is always right, and the patient’s mother is always right

Listen

A brilliant physician shared his wisdom with me during our most recent clinical training session. He was humble and inspiring, telling stories of patients who came in and practically diagnosed themselves. In a cautionary tone he reminded us that “the nurse is always right, the patient is always right, and the patient’s mother is always right.”

Listening skills are as valuable as anything else we develop over the course of our professional and personal lives. It’s not just for medical students and it’s not just for doctors. I can’t think of any role in my own life it doesn’t apply to, be it teacher, sister, friend, etc.

Think about it, and don’t necessarily respond

When someone comes to you and says they need advice, it’s quite likely they already know the answer but need to talk through it. Sure, there are times they genuinely want a second opinion; I absolutely appreciate the candid of advice of friends now and again. More often, though, they’re not asking you to talk (even if they say “can we talk about this?”). Rather, they are asking you to patiently listen as they explain all the complexities that they needed to verbalize before making a decision on their own. The best career counselors (and tutors/therapists/you-name-its) are not the best at giving prescriptive advice; they are the best at asking questions.

What are the right questions?

Good question. I don’t know; it depends…? We can grab for the obvious answers such as “use open-ended questions to elicit more of a story,” but there is a whole lot of subtlety to question crafting that can’t be quantified or listed. Scary things happen when we only ask questions we think we know the answers to, or when we purposefully ask leading or convoluted questions. Of course, leading questions are often unintentionally so; I find myself accidentally saying things laden with assumptions all the time (which then leaves me with the simultaneously awkward and terrifying fact that there are sure to be a million other times when I’m making assumptions and NOT ever realizing it).

Okay, that’s enough talking for today. What kinds of questions do you ask? When is it hardest to listen? Why do we filter what we hear?