Communication & Interviewing

The medical interview will be one of your most important tools as a physician. Over the course of your career, you will see tens of thousands of patients, and your communication skills can make a difference to each of them. Effective communication has been shown to:

• improve many health outcomes
• make diagnosis more efficient and accurate
• make patients feel cared for

In Immersion, you’ll learn to perform the comprehensive histories you will gather from patients in the hospital. As you prepare to start the Primary Care Practicum in January, you’ll practice the problem-focused approach to data gathering that is used in the clinic. Throughout FCM, workshops will introduce new communication skills and re-visit those you’ve learned before.

Advanced communication topics that will be addressed before starting clerkships include:

• Providing information
• Delivering serious news
• Behavior change counseling
• Screening for family violence
• Challenging encounters such as:
  • Tangential history
  • Strong emotion
  • Uncertainty
• Shared decision making and the patient-centered plan