Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
sense characterized above are supposed to actively help their patients to talk
about their life situation and take into account the patients' diagnostic ideas.
The conversational style includes what is called an
open attitude
that aims at
encountering the patient as a person
, to get into close contact and a
dialogue
by listening to his/her story. Such an approach implies also that the students
learn to abandon a certain degree of control over the conversation and hand
it over to the patients, to practise
an emotional, empathetic attitude
, and to
be sensitive to non-verbal signs.
After having completed the course in communication skills during the
fourth academic term, students undergo an examination where they meet a
patient and take a medical history. The interview is also evaluated according
to the students' communicative behaviour, focusing on the main features of
the response model as summarized in an examination sheet. On this form,
nine communicative abilities are specifi ed and described in detail, making
a systematic evaluation possible. This kind of evaluation form is used at
different universities and has proved to indicate performance well and to be
positively correlated to training (Humphris 2001).
Learning new routinized techniques that are going to be used in various
medical contexts for performing different types of tasks also means learning
to talk about talk. It means, for instance, interpreting different types of
communicative situations, identifying communicative problems and fi nding
solutions to these problems and evaluating instances of doctor-patient
communication in terms of good and bad examples. It means especially
learning how to talk with colleagues about talk - both one's own talk and
theirs.
The students studied here learned to talk about talk in their group sessions
together with their supervisors and senior colleagues. The discussions had a
case- and problem-focusing structure that centred on the encounter between
the student and the patient. The discussions aimed at analysing the particular
student's strengths and weaknesses in communicating in a
professional
way
and at discussing these on a general level that concerned the whole student
group. Both the improvement of individual expertise and a heightened
consciousness for problematic interview situations were strived for.
The student's account of the interview served as a starting point for the
group discussions. The student who met the patient opened with a short case
presentation, complemented by his/her impressions of the interview and a
tentative analysis of shortcomings that he/she experienced with regard to the
communication. Sometimes the student expressed some precise problems
that he/she experienced and for which he/she requested help from the group.
This phase took at most fi ve minutes.
The video was then turned on and watched by the group, sometimes after
each student had been assigned an aspect to which he/she was to pay certain
attention, e.g. how the student formulated questions, or how he/she used
body language.
