Pic 9: The screen fades into a scene where Austin is talking to Vanessa in an exam room.
Austin: Dr. Singh is recommending that you try medication for a few weeks and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, we can refer you to a gastroenterologist for some tests.
Vanessa: Actually, I was looking at my symptoms online and it seemed like a lot of them correlate with stomach cancer.
Austin (voiceover): Vanessa’s response, coupled with her anxiety, prompted me to ask a few more questions about other things in her life.
Austin: Vanessa, how’s everything going? I know you’ve been studying for the bar exam?
Vanessa: (sigh) I should be. But with my stomach, I just, I can’t concentrate. At night I lay awake and think about how far behind I am in my studying. There’s just a lot going on right now.
Austin: Like what?
Vanessa: It’s just, everything. I’ve been thinking about moving. Plus I’ve been fighting with my family, and now the stomach problems.
Austin: You sound really overwhelmed.
Pic 10: The screen returns to Austin and Dr. Eber at the table.
Austin: We realized that Vanessa’s physical and emotional manifestations were directly related, so we referred her to Dr. Eber.
Dr. Eber: I’ve been seeing Vanessa regularly and updating her primary healthcare team on her progress. She’s doing much better and her insomnia and digestive problems are slowly subsiding.
Austin: I keep thinking about how I almost didn’t question Vanessa further because of the pressure ofa full schedule of clients. Frankly, a conversation like the one I had with Vanessa was out of the ordinary for me, and I need to learn some tangible techniques that I can carry out in time-efficient ways.
Pic 11: The screen returns to a close-up of Dr. Eber.
Dr. Eber: (to user) I know that, working in a primary care setting, it might not seem like your responsibility to help identify and manage mental health disorders. But there are common risk factors and warning signs you may recognize in clients.
Pic 12: A list appears next to Dr. Eber with the title “We Will Discuss.” Each item has a check mark next to it.
We’ll discuss those today, as well as effective conversation strategies for quickly learning more about a client’s condition, discussing treatment options, and assisting with referrals.
We’ll also talkaboutsome screening tools that you can use to gain insight into your clients’ mental health and follow-up best practices to increase client adherence with treatment plans.
Austin: (to user) You will help me put these techniques into practice by engaging in conversations with 2 virtual clients.
Let’s get started!