AMEE Berlin 2002 Programme

Session 8I Communication skills training
8I1 Which interviewing skills must be
actively taught at medical school?
K Aspegren*, P Henriksen, P Lonberg-Madsen and
M Stromming
Laboratorium for Kliniske Faerdigheder, Rigshospitalet, Afsnit
5404, Blegdamsvej 9, 2100 Kobenhavn O, DENMARK
The study looked at which interviewing skills must be
actively taught at medical school. 29 and 60 students
from the last semester in their studies, and from two
different years, were randomly selected in a medical
school where there is little systematic training of
interviewing skills. They were videotaped as they
performed an interview with a standardised patient. The
interviews were rated using the Arizona Clinical
Medical Interview Rating Scale. Interrater reliability
was controlled. The students rated high on 6 of the 14
items of the scale, low on 2 and very low on 6. The
strengths were such as characterize civil conversation.
The weaknesses were important interviewing skills
such as summarizing, using open ended questions, etc.
There was good agreement between years, indicating
a systematic trait in strengths and weaknesses. We
believe our results can be used for planning
interviewing skills courses in medical schools.
8I2 Implementing communication skills
training at the Charité - a project by
students and doctors
Jan Schildmann*, Carsten Schwarz, Eva Herrmann,
Heiderose Ortwein, Amelie Klambeck, Andreas Brunklaus
and Ulrich Schwantes
Humboldt University Berlin (Charite), Department of General
Practice, Vogelsang 16, 78343 Horn, GERMANY
A lack of formal training in communication skills
during the time as medical students combined with the
impression that the ability to talk with patients is
essential for our practical work was the motivation for
us (3 doctors and 3 students) to organise optional
courses in this field at the medical faculty of the
Humboldt University in Berlin. Within the last 1½ years
courses about how to break bad news, a communication
skills course for students during their first clinical year
and a role play session as part of a course in paediatrics
for fifth year students have been the preliminary results
of our work which is supported by the medical faculty.
In this short communication we will describe our
experiences so far and discuss our plans to implement
the training of communication skills as part of the
curriculum at our faculty within the next few years.
8I3 Teaching sexual history-taking to
health care professionals in
primary care
J R Skelton* and P M Matthews
Department of Primary Care & General Practice, Medical
School, University of Birmingham, Egbaston, BIRMINGHAM
B15 2TT, UK
History-taking is essential to diagnosis, yet little work
has been done on the development of sexual history-
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taking, nor on how to train people to undertake it
adequately. Courses designed to assist healthprofessionals
in sexual history-taking were delivered
in a variety of formats, and evaluations collected from
participants. 114 participants took part in 9 teaching
interventions. All courses were very positively
evaluated (89.95% for quality: 91% for relevance).
Role-play, which was a feature of all courses, was
particularly valued as a methodology. Free text
comments centred on the power of such courses as
consciousness-raisers, and as helping to overcome
embarrassment, and the need to develop and change
communication strategies. Good sexual history-taking
should be part of the health professional’s armoury. It
can be taught, and courses designed to teach it are
highly acceptable to participants.
8I4 SEX SEX SEX, oh yes, and how’s
your knee?
Annie Cushing* and Dason Evans
St. Bartholomews & The Royal London Queen Mary’s, School
of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Human Science &
Medical Ethics, Turner Street, London E1 2AD, UK
Our study shows that, with the exception of the
specialities of O&G and sexual health, medical students
rarely ask patients questions about sex, even when they
think this might be an issue. A workshop using roleplay
was introduced to address this shortfall in general
medical history taking. One hundred and ninety two
students completed pre- and post- workshop
questionnaires comprising 12 attitudinal statements.
Subsequent cohorts completed a questionnaire to assess
future intentions to ask patients about sexual health
issues. Results showed a statistically significant
improvement in all the attitudinal statements. After the
workshop 84% of students stated they were now likely
to ask patients about sex when they thought it was
relevant. Moreover one-third intended to include such
questions as part of their review of systems. There
remains a group who do not think they will be asking
patients questions about sexual health.
8I5 Training of the systemic approach
in doctor patient communication I:
history taking from a third party
K P M van Spaendonck* and E M van Weel-Baumgarten
University of Nijmegen, 300 Med Psych Neuro, PO Box 9101,
6500 HB Nijmegen, NETHERLANDS
The format of the usual training of communication
skills is derived from the conversation of the doctor
with an individual patient. However, when a patient
does or cannot speak for himself (for instance because
the patient is too young or too ill), the patient is
represented by somebody else. This is generally a
parent, a partner or an adult child, who in turn speaks
on behalf of the family to which the patient belongs.
Moreover, doctors have to deal increasingly with
patients who are accompanied by a third person. In
both cases, doctors have to face so-called systemic