"साधु ऐसा चाहिए जैसा सूप सुभाय, सार-सार को गहि रहै, थोथा देई उड़ाय" - भाग ६

"BJMC 1973 BATCH" च्या सुवर्णमहोत्सवी स्नेहसंमेलनाचे वैशिष्ट्य म्हणजे प्रमुख पाहुणे सुप्रसिध्द अभिनेते व मनोविकारतज्ञ डाॅ.मोहन आगाशे यांचे Emotional Intelligence (EI) या विषयावरचे मार्गदर्शनपर भाषण! सध्याच्या डाॅक्टर-पेशंट ताणलेल्या नात्यात हे मार्गदर्शन मला तरी फारच मोलाचे वाटले. तुम्हाला?

थोडक्यात आढावा घेऊ या व त्याचे "सार" शोधू या.

"A fish bowl discussion"

The participants are made to sit in a big circle.

There was a smaller circle of 5 discussants within the larger outer circle.

These 5 discussants started the discussion on role of emotions in the practice of medicine.

As the central group of discussants continued the discussion, participants from outside the circle stood up and replaced one of the central discussants, when they felt that they had something more to add to that particular speaker or when they wanted to object to what was said by the speaker.

This discussion was continued till saturation of the discussion points was achieved.

The second author acted as facilitator for the discussion. He used probes in the beginning to elicit the discussions. When discussions went off track, the facilitator intervened, summarized the discussions and used specific probe questions to bring the discussions back to track, such as:

What are the common emotions encountered in medical practice?

What is the impact of these emotions on medical decision making?

Can these emotions be controlled and regulated?

Can these emotions be completely removed?

Are these emotions helpful in some situations?

The total discussion last for around 1 h and 10 min. There were totally 12 speakers who actively participated in the discussion with a total of 8 replacements of the central five discussants. Two speakers requested for re-entry into the central circle after being replaced and were allowed with the larger group consensus. It is the nature of a fishbowl discussion that the distance between the core speakers and the audience is reduced and the audience themselves sometimes become speakers. It is a communication technique where many of the audience feel engaged with the core discussion, even without participating. Thus, it is a very useful cognitive reflection activity. Though all the 86 participants did not actively contribute to the core discussion, they were engaged in the cognitive reflection.

The facilitator also kept track of the mood and tone of the discussion. At the end of the discussion, the facilitator summarized all the key points discussed from his notes. He also made his observations about the important changes in the mood of the group and dynamics of the discussion. All the participants were given a chance to agree or challenge the interpretations and reflect on the key points summarized.

The qualitative discussion data was analysed using a thematic analysis framework. The transcript of the fish bowl discussion was read in detail by the second author and open coding performed to label the concepts and ideas in the transcript. During the second round of analysis, the codes were grouped into emergent themes. These emergent themes were then described, and appropriate verbatim quotes identified to substantiate each theme. The coding was reviewed by a panel of experts comprising of social scientists, psychologists, clinicians, when the findings were shared in a workshop.