‘People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.’

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This quote by John C. Maxwell emphasises that trust and care are prerequisites to influencing patients to follow your management suggestions and consequently reap the positive health outcomes. SCA examiners are looking for this quality in your consultations.

You can think of it this way. 🤔

Before a person cares about your logic, they have to decide if they trust you enough to let you in.
- Logic opens the mind.
- Empathy opens the door

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The Reality:

If the "door" is locked (because the person feels misunderstood or undervalued), you can shout logic at the house all day, but your patient is not going to hear you and they certainly won’t be implementing your management plan.

Practical steps in your consultation (the empathy logic sandwich)

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1. First show empathy to open the door. 🚪

Do this by:
- Listening carefully to understand the problem
- Checking you have understood their problem and how it is affecting them by summarising it back to the patient.
- Be sure you are clear what is important to them.
- Showing real concern for the problem and expressing your willingness to help

‍2. Second use logic to find a solution that works for the patient

Do this by
- Asking questions that help solve the problem and avoiding questions that are not relevant to solving the problem.
- Offering a management plan that is focused on the things that the patient has said is important to them.

3. Finish with empathy

Do this by showing that you care by:
- arranging follow up with the patient to check the plan has worked
- helping them know what to do if things get worse (safey netting)
- framing their health in a positive light
"the rapid access clinic will help us get you checked out quickly so you won’t have to wait for an answer for long, and the majority we  send don’t turn out to have a cancer"

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To summarise:

Empathy lowers the "social drawbridge." It removes the emotional barriers—like defensiveness, ego, or fear—that keep people from hearing even the most brilliant logical points. Once we have access logic is the tool we use to change a mind, solve a problem, or prove a point.

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