Found that experience-based educational intervention in which medical students interview volunteer nursing home residents significantly changed medical students' responses to two geriatric patient vignettes. Concluded that use of elderly volunteers in practice interviews helped to sensitize students to problems of aging and taught them empathic…

A study found that a combination of small-group instruction and large-group lectures was more effective than lectures alone in preparing medical students to respond to patients' emotional concerns. The small group instruction consisted of interviews with elderly nursing home residents serving as simulated patients, and structured practice and…

Results of individual evaluations of four successive classes of first-year medical students' performance in a communication and interviewing skills curriculum were studied using meta-analysis. Carkhuff's (1969) Standard Indexes of Discrimination (DI) and Communication (CI) were administered before and after course completion. Enrollment in the…