Assessing Physicians' Interpersonal Skills via Videotaped Encounters: A New Approach for the Royal College of General Practitioners Membership Examination

Abstract

The Royal College of General Practitioners' Membership examination , the only postgraduate qualification in family medicine in the United Kingdom , has developed a direct assessment of candidates' interpersonal skills performance using videotaped consultations of the actual doctor - patient encounters . At present about 1 , 200 doctors are examined each year . The methodology has been developed and piloted over a period of eight years . The central tenet of the methodology is a clear definition , which is known both to the candidate and to the examiner , of the clinical and consulting competencies that are required to be demonstrated in order to pass the examination . The candidate is required to provide evidence of his or her competence usually by selecting appropriate patient encounters that demonstrate the fulfillment of the required performance criteria , effectively producing a portfolio of his or her communicative competence . The methodology is intended to encourage the learning and teaching of communication skills by making it part of an important examination and clearly defining the competencies required to pass . Reliability has been demon strated to be satisfactory and refinement of the marking processes is likely to improve this further .