An experiment on communication at Stanford University split people into two groups, tappers and listeners. Each tapper tapped out a well known song on a table, the listeners tried to guess the song correctly.
Before they began, the tappers were asked how often they thought the listeners would guess correctly, they predicted 50%. In the experiment, of 120 songs tapped out only 3 were guessed correctly, just 2.5%.
This gulf between expectation and reality arose from the tappers inability to put themselves in the position of a listener. The person opposite didn’t have the song playing in their head, what they heard may as well have been morse code.
Good communication comes from an affinity with the listener’s position, not from imagining that what you know is in everyone’s mind.
Aiding Prevention & Cure
The need for effective communication on skin cancer has been clear for a number of years, now the most common form of cancer in the UK.
Rates have risen, which may seem like a failure but sun exposure on holiday has increased over recent decades and we are living longer. Straightforward messages have helped to an extent in preventing skin cancer.
They need to battle with the alternative message of a tan being attractive yet are doing so. People have become more sun aware, sunscreen and protective clothing are in more common use, a degree of progress.
Societal change always takes time, 7 million adults in the UK still smoke and a fair number still resist the most important skin cancer message. Early treatment saves intensive treatment and saves lives.
Getting across the need for self checking and professional skin cancer screening is an ongoing requirement for the medical profession. The need to act promptly when symptoms are found is even more critical.
A Role We Can Share
Being a tapper is not much help to patients, using medical terminology that a consultant might understand but a patient is unlikely to.
Medical staff need to be as much listener as tapper and when they do intervene, offering personal advice in plain language makes sense. The same approach can come from friends, partners, other family members.
The messages we all need to share are not obscure, no need to guess the tune, or be confused by facts which are well established:
- Take care in the sun, a vital step to good health.
- Check your skin regularly, or seek help to do so.
- Do not delay if you find a problem, or are unsure.
Information on sun protection, self checking and screening can help, by all means see our skin cancer section, or a website of your choice. They are not however the essential elements we all need to hear clearly.
If we can make the three points above as common as remembering to get dressed on a morning, or which pedal to press on a car, lives will be saved. All of us can spread the word, because we care for those around us.