By Stephanie Cook (MJour鈥�18)
To administer effective medical care, providers rely on their patients for accurate information. So what happens when the provider asks the wrong questions or the patient isn鈥檛 comfortable revealing the truth?
As a social scientist focused on end-of-life communication, Carey Candrian (Comm鈥�04; MComm鈥�07; PhDComm鈥�11), an associate professor of health communication at the CU School of Medicine, is focused on this paradigm鈥撯�揺specially as it relates to the LGBTQ community.
Candrian鈥檚 research shows that, for patients who don鈥檛 identify as cisgender or straight, traditional scripts used in medical forms, intake questions and admission conversations tend to overlook critical elements of their life experience.
鈥淭hink about the script we all get in health care: Are you married? Do you have kids? And now think how isolating and silencing that script can be when you don鈥檛 fit,鈥� she recently explained in an interview with PBS NewsHour. 鈥淚 think the language we use around health care needs to be reimagined.
For elderly patients, especially, this dynamic can pose a painful and scary conundrum.
鈥淒o you come out and risk being treated poorly, or do you stay silent and hide a fundamental part of who you are?鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a heck of a choice, so our other option is that we break these scripts鈥撯�搘e open them up in a way that gives people space to answer in a way that fits them.鈥�
Candrian first noticed the limiting nature of traditional medical scripts while shadowing a hospice admissions nurse early in her career, she recently told CU Anschutz Today. Her interest in communication, though, goes back even further.
鈥淚 got into a major in communication pretty randomly,鈥� she told NewsHour. 鈥淚t was the first day of class, and it was a large lecture hall, and the professor got up the first day and said, 鈥楶eople are not the problem. It鈥檚 the way people talk that鈥檚 the problem. And if you want to change culture, you need to give people a new vocabulary.鈥欌��
For Candrian, providing this new vocabulary is a critical mission with a massive scope.
鈥淐urrently, there are 2.4 million LGBT seniors in this country, and nearly half鈥撯��48% of them鈥撯�揾ave not shared that with their doctors,鈥� she says.听
Learn more about Candrian in CU Anschutz Today and on PBS NewsHour.