Effective Communication

Communication is a basic clinical skill. There is evidence to support that:

• Effective Communication skills training can lead to improvement in patient and physician satisfaction and that it can significantly improve health care outcomes
• The use of specific core skills make a difference in doctor-patient communication and its outcomes
• An experiential skills-based training approach is an effectiv emethod to transform knowledge and attitudes into competent professional behaviour
• Specific teaching methods are particularly effective in learning this skill, including observation, feedback, and reiteration.

Based on recent evidence on communication skills from the Kalamazoo Consensus, these competencies in communication and interpersonal skills would include the ability to:

• Build and sustain a trusting relationship
• open the discussion
• Gather information
• Understand the patient's perspective
• Share information
• Reach agreement
• Provide closure

The competent graduate will have a sound knowledge of:

• Concepts, principles and research evidence that support the importance and efficacy of developing comunication and interpersonal skills in medicine.
• Communication tasks and skills required to build a therapeutic relationship and to conduct an effective interview with the patient.
• Communication tasks and skills required to communicate effectively about the patient.
• Communication tasks and skills required to communicate effectively about medicine and science.