What unites us?

You know that moment when a piece of music gives you a tingle down the spine? Do you honestly know why it happens? Is there a particular sequence of notes, a shift from major to minor, an exceptional lyric, an ecstatic solo? And do you really understand what is happening physiologically in your brain and body as the tingle starts? I certainly don’t – and I would be surprised if you did – but that doesn’t make the tingle any less real, any less profound, any less emotional.

Emotions are extraordinarily difficult to dissect. We can’t pin them out on a laboratory bench or analyse them logically – despite those absurdly simplistic news reports of MRI scanners showing parts of the brain “lighting up” when we react to different emotional stimuli. But we do very definitely recognise our different emotions when we experience them, when we experience fear, or lust, or love, or anxiety, or trust.

I’ve been a patient rather too often for my liking, and I’m very grateful to the NHS for the care it has given me. But I’m also very aware indeed of a profound set of emotions that I experience when meeting healthcare professionals for the first time. Fairly quickly something tells me whether I can trust them – or, sadly, when I can’t and I don’t feel safe. When my anxiety hasn’t been eased.

Trust is an extraordinary emotion, and often – like the musical tingle – difficult to explain. There are radiographers, and porters, and nurses, and doctors who you meet and feel safe with. They may be eminent world-class physicians, or new-to-the team folk starting at the very bottom of the skills escalator, but some folks make you feel you are in safe hands, and some folks make you cringe.

A while back I was referred to a specialist who was described in academic conference programmes as being the pre-eminent specialist in Europe in his field of work. And at the end of an appallingly dysfunctional first consultation, as I got back into my car I turned to my wife and said, “I’m feeling scared now. I really do not want that man in my life”.

I was left puzzled by how someone so brilliant, and so revered, could be such a hopeless communicator, leaving me feeling worse.

Mercifully the tests proved that his specialty wasn’t the one that might best help me, and I never needed to see him again, but I was left puzzled by how someone so brilliant, and so revered, could be such a hopeless communicator, leaving me feeling worse. It struck me then that one of the attributes of a good healthcare professional is that you feel safe with them, that you feel that they care, and that you matter to them. And the opposite equally applies.

Healthcare needs brilliant, competent, and knowledgeable people. Of course it does. And this is why so many admission processes to training tend to focus on brilliance and knowledge. But is that enough? I absolutely don’t want to be cared for by anyone who is wonderfully kind, gentle, thoughtful, and incompetent. Competency is really important. But neither do I want the people who impact on my experience of healthcare to be thoughtless, arrogant, and insensitive.

The true greats of healthcare – whether they are neurosurgeons, physiotherapists, or porters – manage to combine emotional intelligence with the requisite skill set for their job. Is that really too much to ask?

Find out more about the ‘What unites us?’ competition, a prize about getting people working together better. Entries are open until 31 October.