Pediatric interviewing skills taught by nonphysicians.

We cannot assume that medical students develop, through unstructured educational happenings, the skills of interviewing a mother about her child. Teaching these skills requires extensive one-to-one faculty-student involvement, which is almost prohibitive if pediatricians are expected to do this teaching. This article describes (1) a current pediatric interviewing teaching program that uses nonphysicians as teachers; (2) the selection and training of nonphysicians to teach the skill of pediatric interviewing to third-year medical students; and (3) an assessment of these teachers by comparing their techniques with those of three pediatric faculty members. The nonphysician teachers fared most favorably when their teaching methods were compared with those of three pediatricians. Acceptance of the program by the students, faculty, and administration has been most encouraging.