Write a 3000 word essay consisting of three main sections (1,000 words per section) addressing the learning outcomes above. In this assignment students must demonstrate their understanding of communication principles, techniques and strategies used in a health and social care settings. Please refer to the case study overleaf.
A copy of an essay format will be made available to students.
Essay Section 1(LO 1-LO 2)
Case study: Hospital appointment
Jessie Lee, a 35-year-old woman originally from China, was attending her first an antenatal clinic at a large teaching hospital in London. However, she was in her eighteenth week of pregnancy and was very worried because could not feel her baby move anymore. She does not have a good command of the English language. The receptionist and nurses in the antenatal clinic do not understand Mandarin.
Jessie was having difficulty in completing a medical form. A nurse stood by nearby waiting for the form to be completed. She gestured to the patient that she needed to take her blood pressure and weight. Jessie simply did not understand what the nurse was trying to indicate and she certainly did not like the nurse starring her directly in the eye. However, Jessie did not grumble while she tried feverishly to work out the form. The nurse did not like being ignored and rushed off to the reception desk to telephone for an interpreter, but none could be found. Meanwhile Jessie got up from her seat, and started looking frantically round for a lavatory. The nurse spotted her and tapped her on the shoulder and demanded to know where she was going. This made Jessie even more nervous, as she held her stomach and looked desperately to the ground in humiliation. Fortunately, she then noticed someone coming out of a room with a sink in it and she assumed this was a lavatory. She made a dive for it with the nurse hotly behind screaming at her not to enter the room. A consultant in the room asked what the commotion was about, shouting that it was like a busy railway station.
By chance another Chinese patient arrived on the scene and helped Jessie find a lavatory. However, this patient was in a hurry to return to work and could only give Jessie a brief explanation of how to fill up the hospital form. Eventually, after waiting three hours, Jessie met the consultant who had a group of medical students with him. Unfortunately, he had already met her after she had accidentally barged into his consulting room by mistake. His immediate response was "Good gracious, not you again." Now he needed to examine her. A nurse instructed her to lie on the couch with her underwear pulled down so that the doctor and medical students could examine her pelvic area.
The doctor appeared impatient when Jessie had difficulty in answering his questions. Instead she pointed to her stomach and raised her hands up trying to indicate there was a problem. The doctor responded by throwing his arms in the air saying "What on earth is your problem?" He then left her exposed on the couch, muttered to the nearby nurse and students that it was hopeless trying to talk to the patient as she hardly understood him and vice versa. Jessie was now in tears. However, five minutes later, the nurse told Jessie to get dressed and return to the doctor, who remained behind his desk chatting to the medical students. In sheer panic and frustration, Jessie cried "No baby." The doctor completely ignored Jessie's outburst. Instead he quickly completed some forms and then handed them to the nurse.
The doctor dismissed the patient, by telling her to follow the nurse for a urine and blood test. Again, Jessie, howled "No baby, no baby." The doctor turned to the nurse and said "Get her out of here, she's neurotic." Two days later after visiting her GP with her English-speaking husband, Jessie was told to immediately go back to the hospital's A&E department. A scan revealed a foetal death.