Abstract
BackgroundRole plays and standardized patients are often used in medical education and have proven to be effective tools for enhancing the communication skills of medical students. Most course concepts need additional time and teaching staff, and there are only a few studies about role plays in the preclinical segment.MethodsWe developed a highly consolidated concept for the curricular course of 2nd-year medical students, including ten role plays about five subjects: anamnesis, shared decision making, prevention, breaking bad news, and so-called “difficult interactions”. Before the course, all students were asked about their expectations and attitudes toward the course. After the course, all students rated the course, their individual learning progress, whether their expectations had been fulfilled, and re-evaluated their attitudes. Questionnaires were self-report measures and had a quantitative and a short qualitative section and were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Group differences (sex, age, role played) were evaluated with t tests at a Bonferonni-corrected significance level of p = .03 and the non-parametric U-tests.ResultsImplementing this practical course concept is possible without incurring additional costs. This paper not only shows how that can be done but also provides 5 examples of role scripts for different training subjects. The course concept was highly appreciated by the students. More than 75% felt that they had learned important communication techniques and would be better able to handle difficult situations. Playing the doctor’s role was felt to be more useful than playing the patient’s role. Women admitted a higher degree of shyness in the beginning and gave higher ratings to their learning progress than men. Students’ most frequent wish in the qualitative analysis was to be able to play the doctor’s role at least once. The students’ answers showed a differentiated pattern, thus suggesting that the influence of social desirability was minimal.ConclusionsPractical skills can be taught successfully in the preclinical stage of medical education even without an increase in resources. The course concept described in this article provides an effective means by which to do so.
Highlights
Role plays and standardized patients are often used in medical education and have proven to be effective tools for enhancing the communication skills of medical students
The course was held across 6 days for 2 hours on each day, the minimum amount of time that German medical students are required to spend on the subjects of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology in their 3rd semester
Resources needed for implementation According to the German Medical Licensure Act (“Approbationsordnung”), the third semester course, which is compulsory for all students, should not exceed a total of 15 participating students
Summary
Role plays and standardized patients are often used in medical education and have proven to be effective tools for enhancing the communication skills of medical students. The use of peer role playing has appeared to create an appreciation for empathy in future doctors as they are given the opportunity to stand in the shoes of their future patients [14,15,18] It is less time consuming and less expensive than the use of standardized patients. Most publications refer to communication skills programs that are offered as add-ons to the medical curriculum or to classes for more advanced students Such programs train communication and technical competences (for example: [21]). The communication course was evaluated with regard to the acceptance of the course concept, learning goals, expectations, and gained competences by 182 medical students in the years 2012 and 2013 (winter semester). The presentation of these results was the second goal of this paper
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