We haven’t historically spent enough time with helping providers be comfortable taking a sexual health history.
Instead of saying, “You use condoms every time, right?” Instead you say, “Do you use condoms: sometimes, always, or never?” It’s the same number of words. It takes the same amount of time, but now you’ve created safety for the person to actually tell you that they’re not using condoms all the time.
Sometimes once you ask those few questions, if you just be quiet for a moment, the patient will give you all the other information that you need. But you have to have that professional humility to pause and realize that sometimes it’s faster just to be quiet and let them tell you the story once you lay, you know, lay out the opportunity for them.
