This teaching idea presents a heuristic example using reality television as a tool for applying health behavior theory. It utilizes The Biggest Loser (TBL) to provide "real world" cases depicting how individuals progress through/experience the Transtheoretical Model (TTM). Observing TBL contestants provides students practice grounding…

In the last few decades the medical community has increasingly underlined the necessity for medical students and healthcare professionals to acquire adequate and patient-friendly medical language and communication skills. Although teachers of foreign languages for medical purposes are usually not medically trained, their learners present them with…

Few medical schools require a stand-alone course to develop knowledge and skills relevant to substance use disorders (SUDs). The authors successfully initiated a new course for second-year medical students that used screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) as the course foundation. The 15-hour course (39 faculty teaching…

As the world economy continues to evolve, businesses and industries must adopt new practices and processes in order to survive. Quality and cost control, work teams and participatory management, and an infusion of technology are transforming the way people work and do business. Employees are now expected to read, write, and communicate…

A program of seminars designed to explore student perceptions of the emotional and psychological aspects of physician-patient interactions, part of a clinical diagnosis course, used graduate medical students to act as patients in videotaped interviews, interview evaluations, and lectures and demonstrations on interpersonal communication skills.…

Plain Doctoring, an elective, preclinical seminar on the phenomenology of the patient and the physician at Harvard Medical School, is described. Home visits serve as the major text for examining the patient's experience of illness and treatment. Readings in the humanities complement the house calls. (Author/MLW)

Social, cultural, economic, psychological, and interpersonal dimensions of cancer and cancer patient management were addressed in an elective course conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Student attitudes toward the disease were tested before and after taking the course. Significant attitudinal shifts, new insights, and new skills resulted…

A physical diagnosis course is described that introduced an interviewing segment with patient simulation at a medical school where medical interviewing or communications skills were not in the required curriculum. Physicians' responsibility for the quality of the physician-patient relationships was stressed. (MSE)

A course designed to incorporate interpersonal communication instruction into the veterinary curriculum at Purdue University is described, and a preliminary evaluation of the course's effectiveness is outlined and discussed. Students preferred videotaped practice interviews as a teaching technique, made few suggestions, and felt an eight-week…

Recognition of the importance of patient compliance with medication regimens has resulted in a total redesign of a course at the Auburn University School of Pharmacy. A description of the rationale and methodology for focusing communication courses on patient compliance is presented along with a conceptual model and course syllabus. (Author/MLW)

Noting that older patients are often vulnerable in the hospital setting because they may not comply with the nursing staff's instructions, this paper offers a systematic method for teaching nurses how to evaluate older patients in a sympathetic manner and to focus on the patient's norms of behavior rather than those of the hospital. The paper…

A course to help dental students learn techniques of putting fearful patients at ease includes use of physician-patient interviews in a clinical setting, patient reviews of the taped interview, interview evaluation, student-instructor conferences, and group discussion, followed by an actual treatment session and review discussion with the patient.…

"Clinical Nutrition in an Interdisciplinary Setting" is a course designed to introduce basic nutrition knowledge and concepts of nutritional assessment, counseling, and intervention in the clinical care of patients. Provides a brief course overview and descriptions of its development, use, and preliminary evaluation of the patient simulation…

A course model is described that has a sound base in theory but whose major emphasis is on its developmental, systematic, skills-oriented approach. A three-stage developmental sequence within the course (assessing, communicating, and motivating) is divided into component skills and presented over two years. (MSE)

The needs of physically and psychiatrically disabled people were identified, and seven content areas that relate to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by physicians were elaborated in a "core curriculum" for medical students. (MLW)