Have you interrupted someone when they were talking lately? I know I have. Have you ever heard someone tell a story and passed judgment as you listened to them? Me too. Maybe you’ve wanted to ask a burning question of someone but decided it would be better to not ask out of fear of coming across as judgmental or invasive. I’ve felt this way.
Asking good questions is hard. Good questions are the byproduct of honing skills that many of us don’t have regular practice with. Listening without interruption, suspending judgment, valuing truth, and overcoming fear are all key components of asking a good question.
My first full week of medical school was dedicated to learning and practicing the skill of listening. My classmates and I sat in pairs and listened for 90 seconds as our partner talked uninterrupted. At the end of the 90 seconds, the listener had to repeat back what they heard (I encourage everyone to try this; it is much more difficult than it sounds). I was surprised by how bizarre it felt not inserting my opinion or sharing how I related to what my classmate was sharing. In addition to learning to listen without interrupting, we’re continuing to practice asking patients open-ended questions instead of close-ended “Yes or No” questions that don’t invite the patient to share more of their story. This has been the hardest part for me thus far because open-ended questions require a lot of curiosity, and curiosity requires so much focus and attention. In a clinical context, curiosity about the patient’s presentation can elicit relevant information that can help construct a comprehensive, thorough differential diagnosis and ultimately a suitable treatment plan to improve the patient’s health.
This study found that it only took physicians 11 seconds until they interrupted their patients during a visit. Both patients and physicians feel the burden of time constraints imposed on us by our healthcare system, and these interruptions often serve to help the physician elicit relevant information to ultimately help the patient feel better. None of us appreciate being interrupted when being vulnerable with our healthcare providers. Interruptions can often feel like a lack of curiosity about what we are feeling.
I’m not really approaching conversations in my personal life with a goal of diagnosing and treating disease. Curiosity plays a different role in this arena. Curiosity has the potential to make personal relationships much stronger. It communicates to other people that you’re not only listening, but you care enough to know more about their thoughts and feelings. This can make someone feel seen. I believe on some level that we all want to be seen.
Here’s an example of how this showed up in my life. I have a good friend from middle school who I try to see every time I go home. In over a decade of knowing him, we have never had a substantive conversation about our respective faiths. It feels silly that something so important to both of us has never come up in conversation. The reason for that on my part is a combination of lacking curiosity and letting fear of being seen as ignorant guide my actions. Recognizing this fear in myself, I decided to reach out to him after our last reunion and let him know that I wanted to talk about his faith as it is a core part of who he is. He responded with excitement and we plan to dive deep next time we get a chance to see each other. Had I not sent that message, our friendship would have continued to be fine, but it wouldn’t have included this other dimension.
I used to view curiosity as intrusiveness. I thought that if I asked a question about why someone felt or behaved a certain way, I would be seen as passing judgment. I can look back at different relationships in my life and recognize missed opportunities to be curious about someone else and didn’t because I was too afraid of how I might come off. If you have a similar fear, I encourage you to consider what fostering curiosity in your life could do for you.
-kjf
