Clinical Communication Skills

Clinical competence depends on knowledge, clinical reasoning and physical examination and treatment skills but that is not enough. We also need to be able to conduct a good patient-centred interview and to motivate our patients to change. There is a large body of evidence that shows that there are significant problems in our interviews with patients and many of these problems relate to an inadequacy in communication. In fact research is suggesting that up to 70% of medico-legal cases against health care practitioners concern communication issues.

To help in this important area, the Train Pain Academy is offering a 2 day experiential workshop focusing on clinician communication skills training. The workshop will be completely interactive, participant centred and experiential.

By the end of this module participants will:

Know the tasks, objectives and skills of the Calgary-Cambridge framework for medical interviews

Be able to use the appropriate communication skills to:

- develop a therapeutic relationship with the patient;

- establish the patient's reason for consulting;

- gather information from a biomedical and patient perspective and sensitively explore any psychosocial barriers to recovery;

- reach a shared understanding of the problem with the patient;

- develop a treatment plan using shared decision making and collaborative planning;

- manage emotion in patients

Be aware of some of the motivational interviewing skills to evoke health behaviour change