How we teach and how they learn.

Residents need to learn how to assess and accommodate to a variety of behaviors and affective styles presented by patients and their families. This requires those skills which enable them to facilitate interactions with people in a positive, effective, and efficient manner. The teaching of these interpersonal and communication skills should incorporate a multi-disciplinary model. The development and implementation of a successful resident training program requires careful attention to the establishment of goals and objectives, learning activities and evaluation strategies that will meet the needs of the resident. The utilization of a multi-teaching, multi-media, and collaborative team approach intensifies the effectiveness of the overall training program. This article describes a training program that focuses on communication skills while being mindful of the various settings in which residency training occurs. These include the use of video-tape of physician/patient interaction in continuing care clinic, communication with children in non-medical settings and audio-tape reviews of physicians telephone management in a pediatric emergency care setting. The evaluation instruments developed to assess interpersonal and communications skills are reviewed and discussed as an integral component of this educational and training model.