Most accomplished public speakers will tell you that critical to their success is the ability to understand and adapt to their audiences. It turns out that even chimpanzees accept and use this cornerstone of effective communication.
In a study published in Science Advances (2017 Nov 15;3[11]:e1701742), three scientists working in Uganda reported that chimpanzees who encounter a potential threat in the form of a realistic snake model will vocalize significantly fewer alert hoots if they hear other alert calls coming from the jungle in the vicinity. In other words, the chimp is saying to himself, “Why should I bother wasting my time and lung power hooting to warn my troop mates? Those guys already know about the snake.”
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To select which anticipatory guidance topics to include and still be effective communicators, we have to know the families we are trying to help. Gaining this more nuanced picture of a family takes time and is fostered by continuity. Seeing a different provider at each visit doesn’t work very well here. What are this unique family’s concerns, regardless of what some committee thinks we should be asking?
How much can we rely on the media and groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get out the messages that we have decided to skip over to address this family’s special concerns? Is the message about the benefits of breastfeeding so widely known that we will be wasting our limited office time repeating it? Is the same true for gun safety and seat belts? This is where research can help us decide where to target messages on a national level. But large population studies don’t always apply to our communities and the families we serve.
Where does our role as primary care physicians fit into the bigger picture of health education? The warning messages issued on a national level may have little relevance for our individual patients’ concerns. Is it our role to echo the message, or are we the ones who must do the fine-tuning?
And then there are the recent depressing and counterintuitive findings that for hot-button topics like immunization, education has little if any value. Those families with firmly held beliefs might acknowledge the rationale of our reasoning, but then quickly slide to another argument to tighten their grips on their original position.
Finally, we must be careful to avoid being labeled as the folks whose message is all about what parents should be afraid of. There are plenty of snakes out there in the jungle, but the chimpanzees have realized that when enough of the population is aware of the threat, then it is time to adjust their message. Certainly enough health problems exist on a national level to warrant continued messaging from the large groups in organized medicine. However, it is up to us out in the jungle to learn enough about our patients to know when we should echo those alerts and when it’s time to save our breath. We can’t hoot about every snake in the grass.
Dr. William G. Wilkoff
Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.”