Teaching communication in medical students – a cornerstone for patient’s outcome

Abstract

Communication is definitely one of the most important contributing factor for an ideal doctor-patient relationship. The major importance of communication is to build a proper relationship with the patients, in which the empathy and respect play an essential role and can be taught and improved with proper training. This process is defined as cross-culture communication and it has to be taught during medical school. Patient-centered communication is a concept closely related to cross-culture communication and it might be defined by the physician’s ability to tailor communication to each patient’s need and level of understanding in order to provide patient-centered care. Training of clinical communication skills in medical students is an incontestable emergency for the patient’s outcome. Medical education formerly focused on training students for solving only the medical problems by providing the treatment for their organic problems. Medical schools recently included in undergraduate curricula clinical communication courses in order to improve student’s and future physician’s the ability to obtain relevant information from their patients, to build strong doctorpatient relationships and provide patient-centered care. Various models were elaborated for teaching and assessing clinical communication skills, which were found to improve multiple aspects of physician-patient communication among which counseling, interviewing techniques and prescription. Medical schools should properly address to clinical communication skills by including training courses in each year of education focused on the specific of the learned medical fields. It is crucial for implementing proper assessment methods in order to prevent and diminish as much as possible the factors that might negatively impact the development of doctor-patient relationship. Proper medical training in terms of clinical communication skills should be initiated during medical school in all students that deal with patients, but also after the graduation, periodically in all health care providers for assuring an ideal outcome for their patients.