Preparing medical students to become attentive listeners

Abstract

Background: The ability to listen is critically important to many human endeavors and is the object of scholarly inquiry by a large variety of disciplines. While the characteristics of active listening skills in clinical practice have been elucidated previously, a cohesive set of principles to frame the teaching of these skills at the undergraduate medical level has not been described.Aims: The purpose of this study was to identify the principles that underlie the teaching of listening to medical students. We term this capacity, attentive listening.Methods: The authors relied extensively on prior work that clarified how language works in encounters between patients and physicians. They also conducted a review of the applicable medical literature and consulted with experts in applied linguistics and narrative theory.Results: They developed a set of eight core principles of attentive listening. These were then used to design specific teaching modules in the context of curriculum renewal at the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University.Conclusions: Principles that are pragmatic in nature and applicable to medical education have been developed and successfully deployed in an undergraduate medical curriculum.