MedEdPublish (May 2019)
How to Convince Clinicians that ‘Soft’ Skills Save Lives? Practical Tips to Use Clinical Studies to Teach Physicians’ Roles
Abstract
The implementation of competency-based medical education is hampered by unsupported arguments like 'soft' skills are important, but they don't save lives. When implementing teaching and assessment methods targeting non-medical expert roles, student and physician buy-in is crucial. These intrinsic roles (e.g. collaborator or professional) are unfortunately misinterpreted and underused by supervisors, in part because of the false assumption that those skills have minimal impact on patient outcomes. On the contrary, although not worded in those terms, many clinical studies prove the impact of those roles on patient mortality, morbidity, readmission rate, or compliance. Whereas physicians feel that they are properly trained to give feedback, they struggle in making this connection between clinical studies and intrinsic roles in their everyday teaching habits. In this article, we provide practical tips on why and how to use high-impact clinical studies to enlighten supervisors and trainees about the educational and clinical importance of those skills. A slide kit, to be presented in clinical settings, provides a selection of 30 examples of 'hard' evidence on those so-called 'soft' skills, reinforcing the fact that intrinsic roles are intertwined with the medical expert role to improve patient care.
