Nickou Memari

Patient Interview Reflection Paper 2

Overall, I believe I saw improvement in the standardized patient interview. This

interview had a new aspect introduced of motivational interviewing. I was able to exhibit

the skills important in interviewing and communication. I began the interview with

rapport building by greeting the patient with my name and asking the patient how her day

was. I then structured the interview by telling the patient what would occur during the

appointment. I did ask the patient’s main concern but do believe that I could have worked

on asking the patient about their health values and beliefs more to get a more

comprehensive background of the patient. In regard to nonverbal communication, I

maintained a comfortable distance from the patient and maintained eye contact while

facing the patient directly. The patient did say in the feedback session that they felt that I

appeared interested in what the patient said and cared for her. She also perceived the

empathy that I expressed. As far as word choice, I deliberately avoided jargon and

attempted to use appropriate language. I do believe I could improve on the area of asking

for understanding of the patient.

Reflecting on my motivational interviewing skills, there are areas of improvement

I can work on. I attempted to use open-ended questions but could certainly incorporate

more open- ended questions. I used a few affirmations acknowledging the patient’s

willpower to stop smoking. I believe I could have also used more affirmations. I reflected
on what the patient told me in order to exhibit clear listening and understanding. I

especially want to improve on summarizing and have adequate time at the end of the

interview to summarize points. Overall, I want to improve my interview closing. Due to

lack of time, I was not able to sufficiently summarize and structure the interview for the

patient. I am not sure if the patient felt they had enough time to ask further questions.

I believe the patient was in the contemplation phase or preparation phase because

they felt willing to stop smoking and seemed to ask for more resources as far as how they

could get help to stop smoking.

In the feedback session, the patient mentioned the strength of empathy and how

she felt that I responded and acknowledged her husband’s medical condition. She said I

showed that I listened well. A weakness I would mention for this interview was that I did

not have good time management and closing remarks because I was going overtime with

the patient interview, which is a problem I did not encounter during the last standardized

patient interview. When the ringer was buzzed, I was still speaking with the patient about

their smoking habits and I need to improve on managing the time. For my next interview,

I want to work on and show growth in the areas of time management as well as the

motivational interviewing skills area of affirmations and summarizing. I believe that I

could have used the skill of affirmations better in the interview in order to demonstrate

motivational interviewing more and summarize the points that the patient makes in order

to show understanding and ask the patient if they have any other concerns or questions at

the end. Overall, I found this experience to be great for improving motivational

interviewing skills.