Teaching consultation skills by videotaping interviews: a study of student opinion.

The need to teach undergraduate medical students the skills of conducting a consultation now seems well established. Several authors have also established the efficacy of using constructive feedback on videotapes of each student's interaction with a patient to enhance such skills. To date, however, students' perceptions of this process have not been reported. Here we present the results of such a study, together with a review of the relevant literature. In our study we found that students felt that their skill at analysing and evaluating consultations had been enhanced, but that they would have liked to have more than one of their consultations taped and reviewed. This last suggestion is discussed in the light of the literature reviewed, as are the advantages and disadvantages of using real or surrogate patients for this kind of training.