Teaching the Heart of Medicine: The Medical Interview

Abstract

Abstract This resource, Teaching the Heart of Medicine: The Medical Interview, is a curriculum package designed to train first-year medical students about communication using a multiple-discourse model. Section one provides a variety of interactive activities for teaching students to establish a relationship with and obtain the medical history from patients. Section two informs students about what to do, say, and suggest in certain behavior-change scenarios and difficult conversation scenarios, including smoking cessation, alcoholism, and giving bad news. This curriculum features resources in downloadable format for both facilitators and students, including condensed materials that can be made into pocket-sized books, a facilitator guide with tips for the activities, tally sheets for the activities, videos for the students, material that can be made into pocket cards for students with key concepts, and pocket manuals for the facilitators as they conduct the communication-building activities. For 7 years, this resource has been part of our institution's Essentials of Clinical Medicine course, which medical students take during the fall of their first year. During that time, 31 individuals have served as coaches to train these students. After completing the lab, students positively rated both the course and their coaches in two paper-based surveys. One key takeaway is that students have tremendous variability in their beginning skill levels as well as in their attitudes toward the importance of communication skills. Therefore, it is critical to meet students at their point of need and interest and challenging to not be defensive about the importance of this.

Keywords

• Interview
• Data Collection
• History Taking
• Bad News
• Active Listening