Conduct a face-to-face interview with a healthcare provider (HCP)…

Conduct a face-to-face interview with a healthcare provider (HCP) in the hopes of gaining valuable insights into your interviewee’s field, as well as learning how they handle varying communication contexts daily. Interviewees must have ≥ three (3) years on-the-job experience, and at least a bachelor’s degree or some other certification(s) or credential(s) requiring recognized licensing or specialized schooling beyond the high school level. Some examples include a doctor, registered nurse (RN), physician’s assistant, pharmacist, as well as an occupational, physical, or music therapist, a paramedic, emergency medical services (EMS) technician, a healthcare administrative assistant, IT specialist, social worker or psychiatric counselor.

Next, start the interview with some “small talk.” Then, ask the following questions about their job:

• What’s your employment background?
• Where do you work now?
  • How long have you been with ______________?
• What’s your current title?
  • How long have you held this title?
• When you started, what were your primary duties and responsibilities?
• Have they changed over time? If so, how?

Next, ask these questions about the role of communication in their job (responses to these questions make up the bulk of your interview)

• At what point in your life did you know you wanted to pursue this career?
• Describe how others (such as a teacher, neighbor, or family member) may have influenced you to go into this field.
• Briefly describe your formal education:
  • What degree(s) and/or certification(s) have you earned?
  • What kinds of courses did you take?
  • Was a communication course required?
• What do you like the most about your job?
• What do you like the least?
• Can you describe some communication challenges that you encounter at work?
  • With co-workers?
  • With patients/clients?
  • With healthcare team/s?
• Describe a situation in which communication was not effective?
• What are the challenges of effectively communicating with patients or other healthcare professionals from different cultural backgrounds (e.g., ethnic, religious, generational)
• Ask at least three (3) additional questions; these can be follow-up questions to your interviewee’s initial responses, so listen carefully. Focus on any other additional questions on contexts or dimensions of health care communication.
• Do you have any final thoughts or advice to give me?

In the introductory paragraph describe your interviewee and their job. Next, discuss what you learned from your interviewee highlighting three responses that you found the most interesting, useful, and/or surprising; then, briefly explain why. Include direct quotes where relevant. Finally, provide a concluding paragraph about what you learned from the interview that relates to topic/s we’ve discussed so far this semester.