Improving communication skills.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Schnabl.
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Medical educators at undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education levels acknowledge that communication is a fundamental medical skill. Responding to patient, professional and governmental advocates, as well as to advances in research on patient-physician communication and its teaching, some medical educators are in the process of starting new communication curricula, while others are working at expanding, integrating and further developing already well-established programs. For most people working in this area, the question is no longer whether to teach and assess communication skills and attitudes but, rather, how to do so most efficiently and effectively. In order to enhance the development of communication curricula at all levels, we first provide a brief look at how communication education has become widely encouraged in many parts of the globe, and we set out the underlying assumptions that frame the teaching and learning of communication in medicine. We then summarize critical components common to many established communication curricula and identify a series of specific strategies for teaching communication skills. We include a chart that describes a sample of the wide variety of resources available to assist in the development and teaching of communication curricula in medicine. Finally, we consider gaps in current communication curricula and suggest the next steps and ideas for moving forwards.
Primary care physicians must identify and manage work-related disease, yet it is unclear whether training is adequate to accomplish this. This study examines the performance of 110 candidates, including 93 4th-year medical students, in the diagnosis and treatment of a standardized patient with occupational illness. Results indicated that the students did substantially better than the medical practitioners who had not received recent training. Although a strong correlation existed between candidates performance on the occupational health (OH) case and overall score on 19 non-occupational health cases, the competency measure that most determined performance on the OH case was interpersonal skills. A correlation also existed between working knowledge, data collection and data interpretation skills overall, and performance on the OH case; diagnostic skills, test selection, test interpretation, and case management skills overall showed no such correlation. The findings highlighted the importance of emphasizing interpersonal skills in training physicians to appropriately manage occupational medical cases, and illustrated the usefulness of standardized patients in teaching and evaluating occupational medical skills.
The accuracy and reproducibility of the standardized patient's presentation of a clinical problem was evaluated in 15 cases used in the evaluation of fourth year medical students in two universities. There were differences in the quality of standardized patient presentation between institutions and among the cases presented.
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