Patience & Humor Useful tools for dealing with misinformation, vaccine hesitancy
By Greg Basky In hindsight, Dr. John Dosman wishes he’d handled differently a patient who showed up at the Saskatoon Community Clinic in the early days of the pandemic refusing to wear a mask. Things escalated to the point where the man became aggressive toward Dr. Dosman and his staff, and finally had to be asked to leave the building. “I must say, I didn’t deal with that very well,” says Dr. Dosman, who chalks up his uncharacteristic reaction to a fuse shortened by lack of sleep from a busy on-call rotation. However, hard-core anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers have been the exception, not the rule, in Dr. Dosman’s practice. Far more common, he says, are the patients who are simply
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a bit hesitant or unsure about getting vaccinated, sometimes based on misinformation. Like the woman Melfort family physician Dr. Michael Stoll spoke with on the phone, whose husband was convinced he couldn’t get his shot for COVID-19 because he’d had a shingles vaccine several months earlier. “I asked her where he’d heard that. As it turns out, it was just some random person he didn’t even really know who told him he’d have an aneurysm rupture.” During the past year, based on hundreds of interactions with patients, Drs. Stoll and Dosman have identified a handful of strategies they’ve found effective when communicating with those who are on the fence when it comes to vaccinations.
Vaccination is the default
Humor helps
Dr. Dosman, who completed training made available for physicians who wanted to deliver vaccines, says he starts virtually all patient interactions with: “Have you had your shot yet?” If the answer is no, he follows up by asking if they’ve made an appointment to be vaccinated. “It’s almost that the default position is, well of course you’re going to get vaccinated,” says Dr. Dosman. “I think maybe the psychology behind this is that if your doctor is making the assumption that you’re getting it, then you probably should.”
Dr. Stoll says he pulls out humor when it’s the right fit for a patient he knows well. He cites the example of patients who pointed out during the first phase of the vaccination rollout that 30 per cent of Saskatchewan health-care professionals initially opted not to receive their first shot. “They’d say, ‘What does that tell you?’ And I’m like, ‘It tells me they’re making a bad decision, that’s what it tells me.’ ” Dr. Stoll says humor does work and it’s part of who he is as a doctor. The key is its judicious application. Know your audience, and know what’s going to resonate with them.
SMA DIGEST | FALL 2020
