Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Medicine

This book and its companion, Skills for Communicating with Patients, Second Edition, provide a comprehensive approach to improving communication in medicine. Fully updated and revised, and greatly expanded, this new edition examines how to construct a skills curricular at all levels of medical education and across specialties, documents the individuals skills that form the core content of communication skills teaching programmes, and explores in depth the specific teaching, learning and assessment methods that are currently used within medical education. Since their publication, the first edition of this book and its companionSkills for Communicating with Patients, have become standards texts in teaching communication skills throughout the world, 'the first entirely evidence-based textbooks on medical interviewing. It is essential reading for course organizers, those who teach or model communication skills, and program administrators.

Introduction. The 'why' - a rationale for communication skills teaching and learning. The 'what' - defining what we are trying to teach. The 'how' - principles of how to teach communication skills. Choosing and using appropriate teaching methods. Analysing communication skills and giving feedback in experiential teaching sessions. Running a session: facilitating communication skills teaching in different learning contexts. Running a session: facilitating tools to maximise participation and learning. Introducing research, and theory: expanding and consolidating learning. Principles of designing communication skills curricula. Specific issues of curriculum design at different levels of medical education. Assessing learners' communication skills. Enhancing facilitator development. Constructing a curriculum: the wider context.

Suzanne Kurtz, Juliet Draper, Jonathan Silverman