Instrumental strategy: A stage in students’ consultation skills training?

Abstract

Objectives. To explore and examine students’ abilities to communicate with patients during a general practice course in the final year of the curriculum and to analyse and consider this experience in relation to earlier consultation training. Setting. General practice courses in the undergraduate curriculum. Design. Qualitative data analysis was used. A special focus-group interview of experienced supervisors was performed and analysed (editing analysis). Credibility of data was tested at local seminars and conferences. Authors’ experiences of observing student consultations over many years were also used. Results. A main theme, ‘open invitation’, emerged based on categories ‘initially attentive’ and ‘listening attitude’. In contrast, the second main theme was ‘instrumental strategy’, based on the following categories: ‘one-sided collection of medical facts’ and ‘relationship-building lost’. The students also had difficulties in devoting attention to patients’ life experiences. An hourglass metaphor of students’ and young physicians’ progression of communication strategies is presented. The narrow part of the hourglass corresponds to an instrumental strategy at the end of undergraduate clinical education. Conclusions. An instrumental strategy may be a stage in student's consultation learning progression that interferes with communication training. A question is raised: is training of a patient-centred approach throughout the clinical curriculum needed for optimal development of consultation skills? Further research is needed to test this hypothesis.

• Consultation skills
• focus group
• general practice course
• qualitative analysis
• patient-centred approach
• undergraduate medical education