Effective Communication Skills

The aim of this course is to enhance and improve your communication skills in the doctor-patient relationship and colleague to colleague, for the best possible clinical outcomes.

Effective communication skills are crucial to the patient-doctor relationship and have direct consequences for patient outcomes.
Doctors perform an average of 200 000 consultations in a professional lifetime, so it is worth reflecting on to get it right.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Reflect on your communication in your role as a doctor
• To understand how the patient perspective differs from the doctor's and to really contemplate how you might access your patient's perspectives and develop a patient centred practice by making your communication more effective
• For you to learn about effective communication, including the impact of mindfulness and compassion in making doctor- patient communication more effective
• Understand the Cambridge-Calgary Framework in practical ways and to be able to use it to support the development of effective communication skills
• Understand the stages of change and to be thinking about how you use this to inform your communication with patients
• To understand how motivational interviewing can make your communication with patients more effective in terms of helping them make changes
• To help you think through how you can manage telephone communication and the use of digital technology(computers) in ways that are conducive to effective communication