Rediscovering the wheel--teaching communication skills using video taped clinical consultations in specialist training.

Communication skills are inevitably used during the clinical consultation in medicine. Unlike trainees in general practice, trainees in specialist and general medicine are not formally trained in communications skills. We used methods for training communication skills developed in general practice and videoed consultations with simulated patients, adapted for neurology, and found these to be valued by our trainees. In specialist medicine we need to begin exploring how to help our trainees learn communication skills; perhaps our colleagues in general practice can show us where to start?