Deepening the teaching and learning of clinical communication: The importance of reflection and feedback in health education

Renato Soleiman Franco; Camila Ament Giuliani dos Santos Franco; Orit Karnieli-Miller

doi:10.15448/1980-6108.2021.1.39795

Authors

Renato Soleiman Franco Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), PR, Brazil. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1176-480X
Camila Ament Giuliani dos Santos Franco Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), PR, Brazil; Faculdades Pequeno Príncipe, Curitiba, PR, Brazil. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3686-5044
Orit Karnieli-Miller Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5790-0697

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-6108.2021.1.39795

Keywords:

medical education, communication skills, medical students

Abstract

Aims: clinical communication (CC) relates to health professionals’ interaction with patients/families. CC is fundamental for the physicians’ role. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion about reflection and feedback for meaningful teaching and learning of CC.
Methods: the authors provided a short review and conceptual discussion of the history and nature of CC teaching, followed by exploring the role of reflection and feedback in teaching CC.
Results: communicating well can be challenging as it requires medical students and professionals to adapt their communication to each patient/family while obtaining all the needed information, conveying trustworthiness, care, and compassion. The teaching of CC to medical students involves deepening the doctor-patient relationship’s technical, relational, and emotional elements. CC requires teaching that is flexible and tailored to the participants’ needs. Therefore, teaching CC must go beyond asking the appropriate question or applying specific checklist-based behaviours. In teaching CC, it is crucial to give medical students support to discuss personal and institutional barriers and attitudes and explore how to transfer their learning to clinical practice. To that end, reflection should be encouraged to allow students to express difficulties and feelings and enhance their understanding of themselves and others. Within this process, feedback is essential to moving beyond skill-based teaching to reflection-based learning.
Conclusion: the move from skills-based learning requires using reflective processes and feedback to allow students to learn about their communication tendencies and needs to become more flexible and attuned to different patient’s needs in clinical encounters.

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Author Biographies

Renato Soleiman Franco, Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), PR, Brazil.

Psychiatrist, PhD in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto, Portugal; professor in the School of Medicine and in the Post Graduate Program in Bioethics at Pontifical University of Paraná (PUCPR), Curitiba, Brazil.

Camila Ament Giuliani dos Santos Franco, Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), PR, Brazil; Faculdades Pequeno Príncipe, Curitiba, PR, Brazil.

Family Physician, PhD in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto, Portugal; adjunct professor in the School of Medicine at Pontifical University of Paraná (PUCPR), Curitiba, Brazil.

Orit Karnieli-Miller, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Social Work, BA, MA and PhD; Head of the Department of Medical Education, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

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