Talk about a time there was miscommunication in the treatment of a patient. How did you handle that situation?
"While I haven't experienced this directly in patient care while interning as a Physical Therapist, I know that we work in a world where communication is extremely important. If I every learned that there was a miscommunication on a patient, I would do my best to get to the root of miscommunication to ensure that it doesn't happen again. If needed, I would talk with my manager as well to hopefully prevent it from happening again."
"For some of the sports related patients that I treat, a fast turnaround time is often requested from the patient and the referring physician. Based on a simple clerical error, the patient became frustrated with me upon my initial consultation with them because I began working with the wrong shoulder. Based on the records I received, the left shoulder was the one that was injured. According to the patient, it was the right shoulder that needed rehabilitation. In following protocol, I contacted the referring physicians office right away to see if and where an error occurred. Within minutes, the referring physician called our office back and said that the record he input into their system was incorrect. Within a short period of time, I had the correct records in hand to treat the patient and it was because I was willing to reach out to the referring physician."
As a Physical Therapist, the patients that are referred to you can come from many different physicians. Miscommunications on patients can happen and the interview is looking to see how you handled a particular miscommunication between yourself and a physician. In your answer, make sure to point out the importance communication plays in the overall well-being of the patient and that you are not hesitant to follow-up on communication.
"In my current organization, I receive patient referrals from many physicians on patients that need PT on their knees. Without having direct access to the patients medical records through their physician, my administrative staff are great about obtaining records in a timely manner. Recently, I had a new patient come in that we hadn't received medical records for. Rather than relying solely on what the patient told me, I made a quick phone call over to the physicians office to have the records quickly faxed over. After verifying the release form was signed on their end, I had the medical record within ten minutes. I fully realize that since some patients don't fully understand their medical history so the call to expedite the process was vital."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
During my internship I had experienced a lot of miscommunication incidents, for instance, I used to treat a group of badly injured soldiers from the civil war in Libya and because of the fact that we have to communicate through a translator, there were some issues with the schedule of the therapies, cause the management were giving me a timetable that was interfering with their prayer times so we couldn't do anything at that point or at any other point due to the tight schedule that I had. So my supervisor and I arranged a meeting between us, the management, and the translator to settle that issue, so we could provide our services to this group of patients at a time of their convenience, something that we successfully did and so we had no further problems in the future."
Rachelle's Feedback
Wow - this example is so interesting. I love that you used such a memorable story. You show an ability to facilitate clear communication and skills in exercising cultural sensitivity. Well done. I have tweaked your response a bit, to help with flow.
"During my internship, I experienced miscommunication at times. I used to treat a group of badly injured soldiers from the civil war in Libya. Because we had to communicate through a translator, there were some issues with the therapy schedule. Mainly, the management gave me a schedule that interfered with the soldiers' prayer times so that we couldn't treat them during those timeframes. My supervisor and I arranged a meeting between us, management, and the translator to settle the issue, allowing us to provide our services to this group of patients at a more convenient time."
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