Teaching Communication In Medicine Research Articles

Creation of a model for training the communication skills of medical specialists

BACKGROUND: Effective interaction between medical workers and patients is not only a service function but also influences compliance with the implementation of recommendations for the prevention and treatment of diseases. The communicative competence of healthcare professionals affects treatment effectiveness and the success of health-preserving measures.
 AIM: To examine the problems associated with the formation of communicative competence and determine the fundamental principles of the model of communicative skills of a medical worker.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS: A literature review of 32 domestic and 54 foreign publications on teaching communication in medicine was performed. The work of an expert focus group within the framework of a strategic session on communication skills “A coordinated approach to teaching communication skills in medicine” was analyzed.
 RESULTS: During the work of the focus group, experts reviewed and specified the main shortcomings in the work of medical personnel in ensuring communication with the patient. In the second part of the focus group work, based on communication defects, four blocks of skills were developed to avoid communication errors. Because of a review of literature data and a generalization of the results of the work of experts, a prototype model of the communication skills of a medical worker was proposed.
 CONCLUSIONS: Existing models of medical communication must adapt to national characteristics based on research and joint discussions. The authors propose using fundamental principles of the model of communication skills of a medical worker in educational programs of higher and additional professional education, as outlined in this article.

Contemporary views of teaching and learning healthcare communication in clinical practice

Along with skilled psychomotor or procedural skills, skilled communication is an essential component of effective healthcare delivery. Developing effective healthcare communication does not occur by chance and focused education can have positive impacts on health professionals’ communication behaviour and also patient outcomes. As such there are a range of reported initiatives for teaching and learning skilled healthcare communication in both classroom and workplace settings. There is a long history of teaching communication in medicine and nursing, however in recent times, the importance of patient and team communication has been recognised and emphasised in the training of all health disciplines. Through drawing on research and examples from across the health professions, we can explore contemporary views of teaching and learning healthcare communication with a specific focus on teaching this element of practice in the clinical setting. Connections and implications for the ultrasound teaching and learning context will be emphasised and discussed.

Comunicación médico-paciente: una de las competencias básicas pero diferente

Effective communication skills form part of being a good doctor. Today there is solid evidence to support the teaching of effective communication skills in all medical schools.This article describes how communication is different from the other skills that medical students and residents need to learn, how this affects teaching and learning, and the application of these ideas in a Chilean medical school.We describe the premises that need to be taken into consideration when planning teaching communication in medicine and illustrate how these affected the development of our teaching of communication in our undergraduate curriculum.All medical education programmes should include formal teaching on the doctor-patient relationship, but must take into consideration the aspects of communication teaching that make it different from teaching other aspects of medicine.

Communication teaching and assessment in medical education: an international consensus statement

The importance of communication between doctors and patients has been well established, and there is growing acceptance of the need to teach and assess communication skills in medical schools. Faculty meeting at a consensus workshop during the International Conference on Teaching Communication in Medicine (Oxford, July 1996) generated a series of recommendations for developing and implementing teaching and assessment programmes. The points were refined in subsequent discussions with other interested groups, and endorsed in their current form by a workshop of teachers attending the Communication in Health Care Conference organized by NIVEL, the Netherlands Institute of Primary Health Care (Amsterdam, June 1998). While focused on medical schools, the eight recommendations highlighted in this consensus statement are also relevant to both graduate and continuing medical education programmes: (1) teaching and assessment should be based on a broad view of communication in medicine; (2) communication skills teaching and clinical teaching should be consistent and complementary; (3) teaching should define, and help students achieve, patient-centred communication tasks; (4) communication teaching and assessment should foster personal and professional growth; (5) there should be a planned and coherent framework for communication skills teaching; (6) students’ ability to achieve communication tasks should be assessed directly; (7) communication skills teaching and assessment programmes should be evaluated; (8) faculty development should be supported and adequately resourced.