“Doctors interrupted the patient after 18 seconds”. (Marvel., et al. 1999)
“54% of patients complain and 45% of their concerns are not elicited”. (Stewart., et al. 1979)
“Doctors pay little attention to check how well the patients understand”. (Silverman., et al. 1998)

Reading an old transcript from a medical journal, one had to look at these facts and try and understand the basic lack in healthcare systems. Lack of communication between patients and doctors, doctors and staff, doctors and other doctors, has prevailed as an ongoing problem in maintaining the quality of healthcare systems.

Definition
Communication is an art and a science. To share our knowledge with others, to interact with others and to relay our message across can be few definitions of effective communication. Effective Communication is a two way process and the objective lies in the transfer of the right message to the right person. So in order to be effective, the communication has to have produced the intended or desired results.

Uses of Effective Communication
Communication done effectively will:

• Help to understand a person or a situation in a better way.
• Enable people to acknowledge diversity, build trust and respect each other.
• Helps to get message across.
• Helps in connecting.
• Helps in decision making.

Barriers to Effective Communication:

• Lack of sensitivity to receiver.
• Lack of basic Communication skills.
• Insufficient knowledge of the subject.
• Emotional interference.
• Lacking confidence.
• No provision for feedback.
• Inadequate feedback.
• Lack of interest.
• Information overload.
• Conflicting messages.

Improving the quality of teaching and training systems and focus on personal development of post-graduate trainees
Since its inception in 1962, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan has focused on improving the quality of teaching and training. Post graduate Medical and Dental Trainees are the future of any Healthcare system. Enabling these trainees to reach an acceptable level of competence requires an intense program. Apart from specialty based structured trainings, a concept of workshops was also introduced. These intense workshops ranging from three to five days cater to the personal development of these trainees. Soft skills like effective counseling, communicating with impact, stress management and few others were introduced in the curriculum. The facilitators are subject specialists having a good standing at the college (CPSP) and having the level of dedication and commitment required for these intense workshops. So far, the response from the trainees has been positive and they find these workshops useful.

Future Goal
In future, these trainees will be given feedback forms and the data can be used to further improve these teaching modalities and to learn more about the impact of these trainings on their personal development.

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the Director DME CPSP, Manager DME CPSP and the staff DME CPSP for organizing Communication Skills Workshops.