REFLECTIVE WRITING

NAME : VINAYAGI A/P SELVAM

MATRIC NO : A140586

An event that I had difficulty in communication skills is during our CHC

group visit to organization called Beautiful Gate Foundation at 29, Jalan SS2/59, 47300

Petaling Jaya, Selangor. We went to the visit on 20 th March 2014.We moved from UKM KL

campus at around 12pm.We managed to reach there at 2pm.I had difficulty in communicating

with the authority of Beautiful Gate Foundation. Our conversation is mainly about if our

patient can join their organization to learn hand phone repairing skills or any other computer

skills. During the conversation, I felt lost because unable to continue the conversation, few of

my team members also experienced the same thing. We were expected to ask them questions.

But, we were unclear of what to ask them.

This incident arises because of the Beautiful Gate Foundation authorities are mainly

of Chinese community. They were very fluent in Chinese and they prefer to talk in Chinese as

well. However, they able to answer in English but they were not as fluent as their Chinese. In

this situation, my Chinese friends in the CHC group helped us to translate everything told by

the authority. We did experience difficulty in describing some of the medical terms regarding

our patients condition. The one we had difficulty to explain was colostomy. Somehow, our

Chinese team member explained it in Chinese language. Anyhow, this situation arises due to

language barrier.

When I realise the authority does not understand what I meant, I immediately ask my

friend Sherlyn Lai, who is a Chinese and able to well converse in Chinese language. I believe

this action helps us to ensure the conversation kept going. However, their body languages

were showed some uncomfortable feeling when I tried to seek help from my friend. At that

moment, I was confused whether my gesture was wrong or does not show me as a
professional. But at that moment, it was the only way to keep the conversation keep going.

All of us were lost when they questioned about our patient. It showed that we were not very

particular regarding our patient and not well prepared. Somehow, we managed to get further

information about our patient through phone calls. We did not prepare regarding questions to

be asked to authority, so at some point of our conversations, people from authority were

waiting for us to continue the conversation.

From this incident, I learnt that it is always good to have multiracial members in a

group. It has many advantages. It is always good to learn a new language. Since Chinese

community being the second largest population in Malaysia, it is good to learn the Chinese

language. It might be helpful when Im practicing medicine in future, especially when I take

history of the patient. I believe my communication skill is good. My strength is I able to

come out different types of questions to keep the conversation going. I was daring enough to

question to all my doubts regarding the organization. I believe it was because my eagerness to

help our patient. But, my weakness is I made the authority people to feel uncomfortable.

Another weakness is I do not know to converse in Chinese language. I made the conversation

too serious as I do not know how to make it into a more cheerful conversation. In this

situation, the unexpected result was when they felt uncomfortable. Maybe they are

uncomfortable because they feel shy because they are not really fluent in English .However, I

feel if I was able to make the conversation not too formal, I could have overcome that

awkward situation.

In term of improving my communication skills, I decided to train myself to talk more

cheerfully and avoid talking too formal like a robot. I realise in real life people will feel

uncomfortable when we do so, and they are not really giving all the information needed as

they feel it so awkward. In future, as a future physician, I believe talking cheerfully will help

me to get a better history of patient and they dont feel it awkward. So, I should not talk like a
robot and must get some touch besides improving my communication skills in order to

become a good doctor.