The academic health center--on the rocks with a twist of dilemma

Role-Playing: A Method of Teaching Interpersonal Skills

“…Somehow, such patients are simply not playing the game the student was taught." (5) The planners of the undergraduate program in psychiatry at Queen's University had felt culpable of such an indictment, and over the past two years have made it explicit that the overall aim of this program is to prepare the student for general practice (since this is the career choice of an increasing majority of students at Queen's); and that the task of the Department of Psychiatry therefore is to teach students such psychiatric skills as are particularly relevant to the context of general practice. This paper attempts to describe one of the methods used as part of this effort.…”