Podiatry hosts customer service skills and communications event
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:32:00 BST
In March 2014, a new initiative was undertaken at the University of Huddersfield to guide first year podiatry students on the importance of developing their customer service and communication skills when managing patients within podiatric practice.
The event involved collaboration between academic staff and third year podiatry student mentors, or ‘buddies as referred to them at Huddersfield. Innovative role play, interactive games and peer coaching strategies were employed by the buddies as a teaching method to communication the important of customer service and communication skills. The buddies conveyed the message using a light-hearted, reassuring approach.
The event was organisation by Veronica Newton, Senior Lecturer in Podiatry, with active participation and support from the buddies and College of Podiatry Students Association (CPSA) rep, namely James Forrest (CPSA Rep), Miranda Tuxworth, Nafisa Zaman, Elizabeth Connor, Jenny Laney, Karen Sagar, Simon Jenson, Laura Kirk, Lesley Hynd and Daniel Malone.
The event was broken down into two student-led role plays and two interactive games.
Interactive Game One: Walk this way
Laura, Daniel and Simon gave random instructions to the students, some of which made sense and others were deliberately misleading. The purpose of this exercise was to illustrate the importance of communicating using a clear and consistent approach.
Interactive Game Two: Listen carefully
Elizabeth, Karen and Lesley used the ‘whispering game’ to communicate a list of unrelated items via a group of students, with the aim of the list reaching the start without any errors. The purpose of this exercise was to illustrate the importance of listening and communicating information and, when appropriate, to ask supplementary questions to confirm information.
Role Play, Game Three: Negotiating skills
Miranda and James acted out a scene in a restaurant portraying a customer and waiter. The customer was briefed to ask for something that was not available. The waiter was briefed to avoid saying ‘no’. The purpose of this role play was observational to help students think creatively about communication skills.
Role Play, Games Four: Explain yourself
Nafisa and Jenny facilitates first year students measuring their colleagues up for winter attire, and fitting gloves, hats and socks both with and without explanation. The purpose of this role was observational to show students the value of explaining to customers what you are doing and increase student awareness of how patients may have a fear of the unknown.
Overall the event was highly enjoyable. It was well received by their first year students and the buddies commented on how much they enjoyed the opportunity to be involved.
The role play events were an engaging and fun experience and achieved the objective of highlighting the significance of communication and customer service. In addition, the third year students felt it was important to continuously build upon these skills for podiatric healthcare practice.
Veronica Newton, Part-time Course Leader Podiatry BSc(Hons).
