Communication Opinion Paper When people ask what makes the world work, there are many answers. In my opinion, what makes the world work is communication. From the moment people are born we start to communicate with our very first scream. The screams that babies let out communicates to the world that they are alive. Our first communication to the world; however, after that communication becomes a little more complicated. This paper will look at what communication is and how effective communication is important in the world. Communication is more than just a baby screaming to let the world know they are here. In fact, most often that baby’s scream is the first communication in the health care world at the hands of a doctor or nurse. First we much understand what communication is. “Effective communication is the shared understanding of the information. It involves the shared understanding of the feelings, thoughts, wants, needs, and intentions of the communicators” (Cheesebro, O’Connor, & Rios, 2010, p. 5). Since we have the definition of communication, how we effectively communicate is a skilled that people must master. People communicate every day when interacting with other people. So let us look at the effective ways to communicate. A person comes up to you and starts to talk to you; you in turn need to listen to what they are saying. This is a form of communication. Effectively communication means you have to process what the person is saying. To process communication we use our understanding of language, shared experiences, and education to process what the person is saying to us. A barrier that can exist in communication would be one person is speaking English but the other person only understands French. That would be a language barrier of the spoken word. To break this barrier another person who understands both languages could become an interpreter to both parties to help both provider and patient to understand each other. Sometimes, there is no interpreter so the two people would have to use other forms of communication to understand each other, such as jesters or find common references to help the communication (du Pre, 2004). In the healthcare industry communication is at a different level than everyday life. For example, the medical world has a different language the medical industry uses to name medical conditions, disease, procedures, anatomy, and medications. This is a language that the ordinary person is not familiar with, so when a patient goes to the doctor because the patient is feeling ill, there are two different worlds interacting. Even though the medical world and the people speak the same word language, understanding the medical terms that are used, how treatment will be administered, the prognosis of the treatment can be very foreign to the patient. Interpreters are used to effectively communicate between the healthcare community and the patient. Both caregiver and patient must share information and the understanding of what is being said. Processing the information that is given, and asking questions to clarify anything that is not understood, takes sensitivity, and shared meaning for effective communication and understanding on both parts (du Pre, 2004.) Emotions have a large impact on communications. In the healthcare field, it can become problematic. Patients will often exhibit fear and fear will make them hesitant to communicate about any problematic issues. Fear of what may be wrong with them, fear of the medical world, and fear of the unknown can all be problems that must be dealt with for effective communication in the healthcare world. Fear can be very debilitating and patient can become reluctant to share information. The caregiver must draw the information out of the patient by asking questions, caring about what the patient is saying, and continue to ask sensitive questions to obtain the information that is needed. Start by asking non-threatening