Education in behavioral medicine

Abstract

SUMMARY Behavioral medicine has become increasingly relevant in contemporaneous medical education over the past two decades, but adoption of its principles and methods has been slow. Behavioral medicine stresses the effects of human behavior on health and illness, using a bipsychosocial approach. It focuses on the doctor-patient relationship and the development of communication skills which can result in greater patient satisfaction and increased compliance, producing effective treatment which is also cost-effective. There are several models available for medical schools to use in order to integrate behavioral medicine into undergraduate medical education. The authors conclude that undergraduate medical education must include a behavioral medicine component in order to improve the health of the public and to meet the demands of a changing health-care system.