Translating medical documents into plain language enhances communication skills in medical students – A pilot study

Background: Patient care restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic constrained medical students’ ability to interact directly with patients. Additionally, organ transplant recipients faced increasing isolation due to the rise of telemedicine, the importance of social distancing and their immunosuppressed state. We created a pilot program to pair students with transplant patients for structured, virtual encounters and studied its impact on medical students and patients. Methods: In May 2020, medical students conducted virtual visits with patients via telephone or video conferencing. Patients and students were surveyed regarding their experiences and independent focus groups were conducted. The survey responses and focus group discussions were deidentified, transcribed, and analyzed for themes. Results: Ten participating students were in their first, second, or final year of medical school. The 14 patients were liver or kidney transplant recipients or kidney donors. All interactions lasted longer than 30 minutes, with 56% greater than 1 hour. Three themes emerged related to the student experience: improvement of their clinical communication skills, development of knowledge and attitudes related to organ transplantation and donation, and independent management of a patient encounter. Three themes related to the patient experience: appreciation of the opportunity to share their personal patient experience to help educate future physicians, a cathartic and personally illuminating experience and an opportunity to share the message of donation. Conclusions: This pilot program provided a novel opportunity for virtual student-patient interactions that was feasible, well-received, and mutually beneficial. The use of virtual non-medical patient experiences allowed for experiential learning during which students learned about both clinical medicine and enhanced their communication skills directly from patients. Additionally, patients were able to engage with medical students in a new way, as teachers of clinical interactions, and reported a high level of satisfaction in addition to deriving personal benefit.

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Affective and cognitive components of students’ attitudes towards communication learning - validation of the Communication Skills Attitude Scale in a cohort of polish medical students

BMC Medical Education ◽

10.1186/s12909-021-02626-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Piotr Przymuszała ◽

Magdalena Cerbin-Koczorowska ◽

Patrycja Marciniak-Stępak ◽

Łucja Zielińska-Tomczak ◽

Martyna Piszczek ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Communication Skills ◽

Behavioral Control ◽

Attitude Scale ◽

Future Research ◽

Perceived Behavioral Control ◽

Negative Attitudes ◽

Retest Reliability ◽

Cognitive Components ◽

Test Retest Reliability

Abstract Background The Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) is a recognized tool for assessment of attitudes towards communication learning. In the original version, it consists of 26 items divided on theoretical assumptions into two subscales: Positive and Negative Attitudes Scales. However, the evidence for its structure seems unsatisfactory, and a simple division into positive and negative attitudes may be insufficient to describe attitudes of medical students towards communication learning. Moreover, the existing evidence of the test-retest reliability of the CSAS seems limited. Consequently, this study aimed to provide more evidence on its psychometric properties while validating the CSAS questionnaire in a cohort of Polish medical students. Methods The CSAS was translated, adapted into Polish, and validated in a cohort of 389 Polish medical students. Statistical analysis involved, among others, parallel analysis to determine the number of factors, confirmatory factor analysis to compare the proposed model with theory-based ones, and test-retest reliability analysis. Results Conducted analysis revealed that in the examined population, the CSAS should rather consist of four than two subscales. Proposed four subscales addressed perceived outcomes of communication learning, positive and negative attitudes towards it (affective components), and factors motivating students to learn communication (a cognitive component of attitudes). Results of test-retest reliability were satisfactory for individual items and subscales. Conclusions This study presented a valid and reliable version of the Communication Skills Attitude Scale for Polish medical students and confirmed previous assumptions that CSAS may also be appropriate for assessment of affective and cognitive components of attitudes. Future research should, based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior, make attempts to develop a tool assessing not only attitudes but also subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.

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Start the Way You Want to Finish: An Intensive Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Orientation Curriculum in Undergraduate Medical Education

Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development ◽

10.1177/23821205211000352 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 238212052110003

Author(s):

Denise L. F. Davis ◽

DoQuyen Tran-Taylor ◽

Elizabeth Imbert ◽

Jeffrey O. Wong ◽

Calvin L. Chou

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Communication Skills ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Skills Training ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Relationship Building ◽

Cultural Humility ◽

Mindfulness Skills ◽

Orientation Week ◽

Equity And Inclusion

Problem: Medical students often feel unprepared to care for patients whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own. Programs in medical schools have begun to address health: inequities; however, interventions vary in intensity, effectiveness, and student experience. Intervention: The authors describe an intensive 2-day diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum for medical students in their orientation week prior to starting formal classes. Rather than using solely a knowledge-based “cultural competence” or a reflective “cultural humility” approach, an experiential curriculum was employed that links directly to fundamental communication skills vital to interactions with patients and teams, and critically important to addressing interpersonal disparities. Specifically, personal narratives were incorporated to promote individuation and decrease implicit bias, relationship-centered skills practice to improve communication across differences, and mindfulness skills to help respond to bias when it occurs. Brief didactics highlighting student and faculty narratives of difference were followed by small group sessions run by faculty trained to facilitate sessions on equity and inclusion. Context: Orientation week for matriculating first-year students at a US medical school. Impact: Matriculating students highly regarded an innovative 2-day diversity, equity, and inclusion orientation curriculum that emphasized significant relationship-building with peers, in addition to core concepts and skills in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Lessons learned: This orientation represented an important primer to concepts, skills, and literature that reinforce the necessity of training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. The design team found that intensive faculty development and incorporating diversity concepts into fundamental communication skills training were necessary to perpetuate this learning. Two areas of further work emerged: (1) the emphasis on addressing racism and racial equity as paradigmatic belies further essential understanding of intersectionality, and (2) uncomfortable conversations about privilege and marginalization arose, requiring expert facilitation.

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