Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 11, numbers 3 and 4, 2019 // View article

Facial-Expression Training Application for Medical Doctors

Authors:
Akemi Oe
Yoshitoshi Murata

Keywords: doctor-patient interaction; facial expression; nonverbal communication; facial-expression training application.

Abstract:
Establishing trust between a patient and a doctor depends as much on their relationship as on the doctor’s medical abilities. One of the important factors in building and maintaining a relationship is whether the doctor produces facial expressions appropriate for the patient’s condition. We developed a facial-expression training application for medical students and tested its effectiveness as a training tool. In this application, the Microsoft Cognitive Services Emotion API is used to analyze the patient’s facial expression. Prior to developing this application, we studied what kind of facial expressions were appropriate for a doctor greeting or treating an adult patient. We focused on four situations. Three of them are greeting situations when a doctor begins a patient interview in the general ward of a hospital. The fourth is when a doctor examines a patient by placing a stethoscope to a patient's chest, i.e., auscultation. We also identified appropriate facial expressions for doctors treating pediatric patients. To verify the training application’s effectiveness, the facial expressions before and after learning with the application were evaluated by potential patients or mothers of potential pediatric patients. The results demonstrated the application’s utility.

Pages: 99 to 109

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2019. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 30, 2019

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2660