Communication course

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BACKGROUND

The course was initiated by the midwifery

department at University College North Denmark in cooperation with the leaders of the maternity units where the affiliated students have their

clinical education. The purpose of the course was to enhance the quality of communication education taking place in clinical practice and try to align the educational efforts in school and clinical settings for the benefit of the students.

Communication course

for midwives teaching students in clinical practice

Authors: Annegrethe Nielsen, MA, Ph.D., ann@ucn.dk & Pernille Mølholt Pedersen, RM, MA , prp@ucn.dk – both senior lecturers at University College North Denmark, Aalborg, Denmark

COMMUNICATION THEORY

> SKILLS TRAINING

Each day of the course started with presentation of communication theory and the evidence

behind the skills related to the theme of the day. This was followed by practical training of communication skills in smaller groups led by a facilitator. Small group training utilized role

playing, video recording and simulated patients.

Training own communicative practice in this way mirrors the skills needed to teach clinical communication to students.

THE COURSE

Each of the three days of the course had a specific theme within the frame of communicative practice for midwives:

How to gain insight in a woman’s perspective in order to meet her needs – initi- ate the session, establish rapport and explore the woman’s perspective

How to get the most out of time spent communicating – how to be effective in care – set a mutually agreed agenda, provide structure and build the relationship

How to inform and plan further care in collaboration with a woman and her fa- mily – provide information, achieve shared un- derstanding and plan in cooperation

PERSPECTIVES

It is known that students in medical education find that clinical learning

experiences do not reinforce the communication skills they learn pre-clinically (Rosenbaum et al. 2013) and our own experience teaching Danish midwifery students indicates the same problem in our program.

Providing an opportunity for the clinical teachers to learn, discuss and practice communication issues with each other and with theoretical teachers can represent an important educational quality development.

DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3

The framework for the course was the Calgary-Cambridge set of clinical communication skills suggested by Silverman, Kurtz and Draper 2013

2016

INITIATING THE SESSION

GATHERING INFORMATION

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION EXPLANATION AND PLANING

CLOSING THE SESSION

› Preparation

› Establishing initial rapport

› Identifying the reasons for the consultation

› Exploration of the patient’s problems to discover the:

› Providing the correct type and amount of information

› Aiding accurate recall and understanding

› Achieving a shared understanding: incorporating the patient’s illness framework

› Planning: shared decision making

› Ensuring appropriate point of closure

› Forward planning

Providing structure

› Making

organisation overt

› Attending to flow

Building the relationship

› Using

appropriate non-verbal behaviour

› Developing rapport

› Involving the patient biomedical perspective

background information - context

patient’s perspective

GATHERING INFORMATION PROVIDING

STRUCTURE BUILDING THE

RELATIONSHIP PROVIDING

RELATIONSHIP