This program teaches effective communication skills and demonstrates how to use those skills through survivor-focused scenarios based on common survivorship experiences. The first section focuses on teaching evidence-based skills for letting someone else know clearly what you think and feel and for learning what the other person thinks and feels. The next sections feature survivors talking with the health care team, caregivers, and love-ones as examples of using the skills to effectively talk about feelings and get information, face cultural barriers, and discuss important issues with the family.

Tips for providers to keep in mind:

• Good communication is like a game of toss – it’s a cooperative activity that relies on both sides throwing and both sides catching.
• Healthcare professionals should keep in mind that a patient may not have learned some basic communications skills and that employing those skills during the stressful time of receiving a cancer diagnosis those skills are sometimes not readily.
• Health care professionals may have an educated bias about communication and not realize that their patients haven’t learned about the effectiveness of using “I” statements.
• Healthcare professionals might want to think about their body language, as they consider patient-provider communications.

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