Questions like these are nuanced. Not only are they curious about how informed your opinions are, but they're primarily interested in how you communicate your views. A university's student body serves as a representation of its institution. Therefore, they'll need to know the student they admit will be able to uphold a certain degree of professionalism. Touro places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of effective communication. Under the competencies they value and teach, their students will be expected to "provide effective, equitable, understandable, and respectful quality care and services that are responsive to diverse cultural health beliefs and practices, preferred languages, health literacy, and other communication needs."
They also emphasize, "PA graduates must be emotionally intelligent and able to adjust the content and style of their verbal communication with patients for maximum clarity. Developing strategies to communicate effectively with patients will become increasingly important as demographics shift and reliance on technology continues to increase. Competent PA graduates will need to be able to establish rapport and communicate in meaningful ways with patients, regardless of the modality. In addition, competent PA graduates will need to be able to recognize and overcome linguistic and cultural barriers to effective communication, as well as understand different perspectives and expectations about health and how health care can impact health disparity."
