Abstract:

Objectives:
The Department of Medical Education at National Taiwan University Hospital developed a curriculum "Interactive Training Program of Patient Physician Communication Skill" for medical students in 2013. Instead of the traditional didactic method, this curriculum applied different teaching strategies including audio-visual technique, role-play, feedback and small group discussion in the training. This study was designed to exam the benefit of this new curriculum model.

Methods:
119 fourth grade National Taiwan University medical students received training in 2013. During the four-hour training program,medical students viewed five video clips then small group discussion, role-play, video replay and feedback. After training, medical students filled out a questionnaire rating the importance of and their confidence with patient physician communication skill.

Results:
The training program was effective as the pre- and post-test results demonstrated increased confidence in communication skill. The new strategy made participants more engaging. Participants' patient physician communication knowledge(F = 35.29, p <.001, η2 = .045) and skill (F = 17.13, p <.001, η2 = .023) were significantly higher than those before the workshop. As for the self-assessment of global scoring on physician competence of communication, the scores after the workshop are significantly higher than those before the workshop (F = 13.56, p <.001, η2 = .027). Long-term impact of the training program on the patient care outcome will be assessed by patient follow-up survey six months later.

Conclusions:
Interactive training program of patient physician communication can be effective in settings where teaching strategy is traditionally didactic.

Keywords:

Curriculum, audio-visual, role-play, discussion.