Training Health Profession Students to be Effective Patient Teachers

Abstract

Patient education is an increasingly important part of modern health care. Health professionals' ability to effectively teach their patients is therefore an important concern for medical educators. This report describes a program designed to improve health professionals' teaching skills. Effective Patient Teaching is a 30-hour course which targets 20 specific teaching skills. Course time is approximately equally divided between lectures/demonstrations by faculty, and practice teaching by participants, followed by individual feedback. Comparison of first and last practice teaching sessions to operational definitions of teaching skills showed signifiant improvement in most teaching skills. This study suggests that rapid improvement in health professionals' patient teaching skills can be achieved in a program that includes modeling of effective skills, supervised practice, and appropriate feedback.