‘How to Talk to Your Doctor’ program prepares Arkansans for health visits
By Rebekah Hall
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Sept. 15, 2025
Fast Facts:
- Program equips participants with questions to ask, information and materials to bring along to doctor visits
- How to Talk to Your Doctor is delivered by extension family and consumer sciences agents
- Extension and UAMS Center for Health Literacy co-created program
(802 words)
(Newsrooms: With graphic)
LITTLE ROCK — It can be easy to get overwhelmed or intimidated during visits to the doctor. To help Arkansans feel prepared for these conversations, the Cooperative Extension Service’s How to Talk to Your Doctor program equips participants with tools to build confidence for healthcare visits.
Heather Wingo, extension immunization educator for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the How to Talk to Your Doctor program was designed to educate Arkansans with limited resources and low health literacy. The program was developed in collaboration by the Cooperative Extension Service and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Center for Health Literacy.
When people show up to healthcare visits feeling empowered and equipped for the conversation, that “benefits their overall health and wellbeing,” Wingo said.
“Being confident in your doctor’s appointment and establishing that trust with your doctor is something that a lot of people don’t have,” Wingo said. “People being able to make informed decisions with their doctor about their own health is crucial to their wellbeing, and to their health outcomes overall.”
Wingo said the program has helped Arkansans with low health literacy better communicate their needs with their doctor, and it has also increased medication adherence among past participants.
“This means more Arkansans are taking their medicine as it is prescribed,” Wingo said.
Five steps to effective conversations
How to Talk to Your Doctor is delivered by extension family and consumer sciences agents, who walk participants through a handbook with five steps to prepare for their health visits. The program uses the fingers on one’s hand as an easy way to remember each of the steps:
- Index finger: Remember to bring what you need to take with you to the visit.
- Two fingers: Practice telling your doctor what you need to say in just two minutes.
- Three fingers: As this hand symbol looks like a “W,” the third step stands for “words.” After listening
to your healthcare provider, repeat instructions and information back in your own
words. This could sound like:
- So, here’s how I understood you…
- So, when I go home, I will…
- You just told me a lot of information. Let me be sure I got it all…
- Four fingers: This step stands for Forms. Don’t forget to fill out forms completely and ask for help if forms are hard to fill out. Take a list of things that may be required in the forms, such as past health problems and contact information for other doctors.
- Five fingers: Remembering that your medications can fit in the palm of your hand, take all your medications to your visit, including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Your doctor can make sure it is safe to take them all together.
Vaccine hesitancy and ‘earned mistrust’
Wingo said that through her work as extension immunization educator, she has found that “there’s a lot of fear around healthcare in general.”
“It’s an earned mistrust,” Wingo said. “Misinformation thrives on mistrust. People have had a lot of facts pushed on them, and health literacy ties right into that. When a doctor says, ‘For every 100,000 people,’ that isn’t something that the everyday layperson can relate to. Sharing facts alone is not enough to increase vaccine confidence because people make health decisions through the lens of values, beliefs, fears and lived experiences.
“Healthcare providers need to be more empathetic in how they communicate with patients, but patients also need to understand that healthcare providers don’t have time to have long, deep conversations,” Wingo said.
Part of this mistrust includes vaccine hesitancy, which Wingo said is a multipronged term that is “not just the delay or refusal to receive a vaccine.”
“It’s more about root causes,” Wingo said. “When people talk about social determinants of health, it’s all interrelated and vaccine hesitancy is a part of that. These are not just concerns about safety and efficacy. Cultural norms, religious beliefs or philosophical beliefs also cause vaccine hesitancy.”
Wingo is in the process of training more extension family and consumer sciences agents in Arkansas and Oklahoma to deliver vaccine education and materials. In her regional position, Wingo serves Arkansans and collaborates with Oklahoma University Extension to provide immunization education to counties in eastern areas of the state.
“We’re working on training everybody and getting them comfortable talking about vaccines, and helping them understand that it’s not a debate,” Wingo said. “It’s an empathic conversation about listening deeply to concerns and building trust in their community.
“Agents are a trusted messenger, and if people want non-biased research to help inform their decision, then talking to their agent is the way to go,” she said.
To learn more about the How to Talk to Your Doctor program, visit Health Literacy Resources for Arkansans on the Cooperative Extension Service website or contact your local county extension agent.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
# # #
Media Contact:
Rebekah Hall
rkhall@uada.edu
@RKHall_
501-671-2061