Teaching communications skills to medical students: Introducing the fine art of medical practice

Abstract

Introduction:Like many other people based professions, communications skills are essential to medical practice also. Traditional medical teaching in India does not address communication skills which are most essential in dealing with patients. Communication skills can be taught to medical students to increase clinical competence.Objective:To teach basic communication and counseling skills to fourth-year undergraduate students to increase their clinical competence.Methodology:A total of 48, fourth-year MBBS students participated in the study. They were given training in basic communication and counseling skills and taught the patient interview technique according to Calgary–Cambridge guide format. Improvement in communication was assessed by change in pre- and post-training multiple choice questions, clinical patient examination, and Standardized Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (SPSQ) scores.Results and Analysis:About 88% of the students in the sample were convinced of the importance of learning communication skills for effective practice. Almost 90% students were communicating better after training, as tested by improved SPSQ. As judged by Communication Skill Attitude Scale, student's positive attitude toward learning communication skill indicated that there is a necessity of communication skill training during undergraduate years.Conclusion:The ability to communicate effectively is a core competency for medical practitioners. Inculcating habits of good communications skill during formative years will help the medical students and future practitioners. Regular courses on effective communication should be included in the medical school curriculum.

Role-play as an educational tool in medication communication skills: Students’ perspectives

“…[5] Despite this fact, communication skills’ training happens to be an area that is often neglected. [6] It is therefore the need of the hour to invest in resources to enhance the “communication skills bank” of the medical graduates.…”

“…The evaluation, which was based on a checklist prepared, using the modified Calgary-Cambridge guide, showed a significant improvement in the posttraining scores. In view of these and findings of other studies,[567] the researchers planned the current study to explore the students’ view points of the role-play and also to ascertain if learning communication skills was a felt need by students for their future clinical practice.…”

Knowledge of Medical Communication-Skills Among Pre-clinical Undergraduate Medical Students: a pre-test post-test experimental study.

“…The present study needs to be more comprehensive to extract such a conclusion. Improvement in knowledge has been assessed using various strategies like OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination), [12,13] SP [13], True False Statements, Multiple and Single Choice Questions. No goal standard assessment model has been suggested as different assessment methods have different values.…”

Introduction of a teaching module on intravenous drug administration and communication skills in pharmacology

“…12 In another study, it was found that training about communication skills is often lacking and that further endorses the results of this study about need of imparting these skills to the students in their formative years. 13 It has been correctly stated by Manias, "Medication communication is a vital component of patient safety, quality of care, and patient and family engagement''. 14 In this regard, the role play demonstrations to teach them the communication skills were well accepted by the students and they felt that this approach enhanced their ability to explain drug therapy to a patient.…”