BMJ  2004;328 (10 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7444.0-g

Editor's choice

The teaching of communication skills may be misguided

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Each day in Britain there are some two million consultations between doctors and patients and around 100 million decisions about patient care. Any fundamental reform of health care will depend on influencing those consultations and decisions, and they are, I suggest, so far largely untouched. "Thank God," I hear many doctors say, but who could disagree that much of what goes on in those consultations is capable of considerable improvement?

One method of improving what happens in consultations is through teaching doctors communication skills, but a paper from Liverpool suggests that the teaching has been driven too much by what doctors think is good communication rather than by what patients want (p 864). The authors studied consultations between 12 doctors and 39 patients with breast cancer and asked patients "to describe aspects of communication they valued or deprecated." The results suggest that some teaching on communication may be . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Smith, editor

(rsmith@bmj.com)


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Relevant Article

Doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect in breast cancer: qualitative study
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BMJ 2004 328: 864. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

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re :The teaching of communication skills may be misguided
fenella lemonsky, et al.
bmj.com, 9 Apr 2004 [Full text]
UNCERTAINTY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY
BM Hegde
bmj.com, 9 Apr 2004 [Full text]
Many health care provider just Ignore it.
Ali H Rasheed
bmj.com, 9 Apr 2004 [Full text]
Ability , Affability or both
Srinivasan Ravi
bmj.com, 9 Apr 2004 [Full text]
There is more to communication than being nice
Christine Bundy
bmj.com, 13 Apr 2004 [Full text]
Teaching communication skills: a lot more to do
David M Lewis
bmj.com, 14 Apr 2004 [Full text]
Imperfect knowledge.
Richard Rosin
bmj.com, 15 Apr 2004 [Full text]
The definition of communication skills
Jill E Thistlethwaite
bmj.com, 15 Apr 2004 [Full text]
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T.H.H.G Koh
bmj.com, 1 May 2004 [Full text]
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