Communication skills in medicine

Abstract

Effective communication and interaction are essential skills clinics to professionalism in medicine. Effective communication is defined as the interaction of people that promotes acceptance, dialogue and mutual understanding. Studies show that effective communication has a significant impact on care and increases the quality of health care. However the lack of communication skills is associated with malpractice and medical errors. The relational and communicative competence is based on attitudes, knowledge and skills of communication and interaction that requires teaching and learning, and should be developed in medical schools. The curriculum guidelines of the Ministry of Education for the medical school, since 2001, point to the development of communication skills. The teaching and learning of communication should be systematically developed during the undergraduate, using various scenarios education and the work in small groups with active methodologies. The educational process begins with basic educational goals (introductory interviews in medical practice) and going to becoming more complex (communications in specific scenarios and situations, difficult situations and conflicts), so that at the end the students had knowledge, skills and attitudes to deal with the most of the situations in medical practice. In FMUSP in 2011, from 127 undergraduate disciplines, 45 of them developed communication aspects related to their specific theme. The challenge is to create teaching and learning strategy specifically to the development of communication skills in medical education as a whole, keeping in view the best practices in medicine.