Communicative competencies anchored longitudinally - the curriculum "personal and professional development" in the model study programme in undergraduate medical education at the University of Witten/Herdecke.

Background: In October 2018, the University of Witten/Herdecke (UW/H) launched the new reformed medical education programme called Medicine 2018+. A major innovation compared to the existing model programme was the introduction of thematic focuses. A longitudinal communication skills curriculum was integrated into the new thematic focus "professional and personal development - inner work" (IAP). With the start of the new programme, the IAP curriculum has been built step-by-step over time, i.e. the first four semesters have already been implemented, the following semesters are being planned. Project description: IAP aims to provide students with patient-centred medicine. Five areas of competence were defined: Doctor-patient communication, team competence, staying healthy, my paths to becoming a doctor, medicine and society. The focus of this article is on the communication curriculum. The first year of study focusses on the training of basic communication skills. In the 2nd year of study, students practice these basic skills in small groups with simulated patients (SP), whereby the emphasis in the 3rd semester is on history taking and in the 4th semester is on sharing information. In the 3rd semester, students complete a communication station in an OSCE. From the 5th semester onwards, the focus of training is on the consolidation of basic and advanced communication skills, which can be applied in clinical clerkships, and the reflection of clinical experiences. Key didactic elements are, in addition to teaching the theoretical basics, experience-based small group work with and without SP, feedback and reflection. The evaluation of the summer semester 2020 showed high agreement ratings of the students regarding the overall satisfaction with the individual courses (83-100% agreement). Discussion: The introduction of IAP has been very positively received by the students. Challenges are the adequate handling of the increasing student workload when planning new courses, the implementation of a longitudinal e-portfolio as well as the recruitment and training of clinical teachers and SPs. Conclusion: As the evaluation results of the summer semester 2020 show, the first steps of implementing a longitudinal communication curriculum at UW/H have been successful. Helpful strategies were the orientation on published examples from other faculties as well as regular feedback and discussions with students and teachers in order to adapt and integrate educational considerations into the existing model programme in Witten.

Kiessling C ，Mennigen F ，Schulte H ，Schwarz L ，Lutz G ... -  《-》

Communication skills training in undergraduate medical education at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Objective: The objective of this article is a description of the longitudinal communication curriculum in the Model Medicine Curriculum (MSM) at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The authors describe the planning and integration of the curriculum into the study program, outline how communicative competence is taught and evaluated in the MSM, and identify which challenges need to be mastered in the process. Project description: Starting with the introduction of the MSM in 2010, students have been spending 102 class hours, spread out over seven semesters, practicing social and communicative competences in the interactive small group format "Communication, Interaction & Teamwork (KIT)". The course contents are closely linked to the topics covered each semester and increase in complexity over the course of their studies. The contents are selected by the KIT planning group whose members continually check the curriculum's timeliness and determine any changes. Students as well as instructors have opportunities for evaluating KIT throughout, and their evaluations are taken into consideration as KIT continues to be updated. Instructors from different disciplines teach KIT courses. They participate in mandatory didactic trainings that prepare them to teach KIT. During their 4th and 9th semesters, respectively, students take summative exams that test their communicative competence. Results: According to the semester evaluations by students and instructors, students participating in KIT improved their conversation management skills (students: M=2.2, SD=1.1, instructors: M=1.9, SD=0.7, on a scale of 1-5). In addition, students and graduates rate KIT to be (very) relevant, consider the degree to which it is taught in the MSM to be (very) high, and consider KIT to be a meaningful part of the curriculum. Students taking the summative exams in their 4th and 9th semesters achieve a mean score of 75.9%, respectively 76.9%, in the purely communicative stations and 82.6%, respectively 83.3%, in the global evaluation of communicative competence in clinical-practical stations. Discussion: Survey and exam results alike indicate that the communication training is well accepted by students and instructors and that the training led to an improvement in general and specific communicative skills. Due to a lack of control groups or a pre-post design, it has thus far not been possible to unequivocally demonstrate a causal relationship between communicative competence trainings and good test results. Quality control measures, such as trainings for instructors and regular course evaluations, have been designed to address any challenges in the implementation of the communication curriculum at the faculty level. Conclusion: Building on the experience with the Charité's Reformed Medical Curriculum, a longitudinal, competence-based communication curriculum was integrated into the MSM's overall curriculum. This measure remedied a gap in the medical training that many graduates of regular study programs had previously bemoaned (Jansen 2010 [1]).

Kienle R ，Freytag J ，Lück S ，Eberz P ，Langenbeck S ，Sehy V ，Hitzblech T ... -  《-》

To zoom or not to zoom - the training of communicative competencies in times of Covid 19 at Witten/Herdecke University illustrated by the example of "sharing information".

Since October 2018, a longitudinal communication curriculum for medical students has been implemented at Witten/Herdecke University. In the summer semester 2020, the concept for the 4th preclinical semester included a practical training on "sharing information", which consisted of three two-hour face-to-face sessions with simulated patients (SP). Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, teaching was changed to an inverted classroom concept combining asynchronous and synchronous teaching. The students worked at the beginning of the semester on an e-learning module of the learning platform docCom.deutsch on the topic "sharing information" using reflection and processing tasks. In two digital sessions, the students then were able to practice discharge interviews and discussions about risk communication illustrated by the example of screening methods for cancer prevention. In the first zoom session, students practiced in role-plays among themselves. In the second zoom session, they practiced with SP. The evaluation results revealed that 76% of the responding students considered working with the e-learning module as a good preparation for the interviews. According to the evaluation results, satisfaction with the Zoom meeting including SP contact was slightly higher than those with role-plays among themselves. Although the group atmosphere was rated by all responding students as conducive to learning, almost half of them confirmed that using Zoom significantly impaired the atmosphere (47%). In retrospect, the conversion of the communication training to a digital format worked better than expected from both the perspective of teachers and students. The students explicitly appreciated working with SP. From the teachers' perspective, some specific aspects of successful communication were difficult to reflect on, e.g. non-verbal communication. The use of e-learning as a preparation for practical exercises has proven successful and will be continued in the future.

Knie K ，Schwarz L ，Frehle C ，Schulte H ，Taetz-Harrer A ，Kiessling C ... -  《-》

The longitudinal curriculum "social and communicative competencies" within Bologna-reformed undergraduate medical education in Basel.

Kiessling C ，Langewitz W 《-》

Communication skills of medical students: Evaluation of a new communication curriculum at the University of Augsburg.

Teaching communication skills plays a pivotal role in medical curricula. The aim of this article is to describe and evaluate a new communication curriculum developed at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Augsburg (KomCuA), which was conceptualized by an interdisciplinary team based on recommended quality standards (i.e., helical, integrated, longitudinal). A total of 150 medical students enrolled in the 1st, 3rd, and ≥5th semester participated in the study. They completed an online survey (numerical rating scales and validated questionnaires) evaluating their current communication skills, how these developed across the curriculum in terms of quality and self-confidence, and how helpful they considered practicing in small group tutorials with simulated patients. The students' attitudes towards communication and empathy in the context of medical care were additionally assessed. The students' responses were compared across semesters using one-way univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). Overall, students reported improved communications skills due to attending the KomCuA and further considered practicing with simulated patients as being very helpful (large effect sizes). Compared to 1st semester students, 3rd and ≥5th semester students reported better communication skills (medium to large effect sizes). Additionally, ≥5th semester students showed stronger agreement towards the relevance of empathy in the context of medical care (medium effect size) compared to both 1st and 3rd semester students. The KomCuA has shown to be an effective communication curriculum to support medical students in the development of their communication skills and positive attitudes towards empathy. Additional studies assessing students' communication skills and empathic attitudes longitudinally are warranted to confirm the present results and to gain further knowledge on how these essential skills and attitudes develop across medical curricula.

Zerbini G ，Reicherts P ，Reicherts M ，Roob N ，Schneider P ，Dankert A ，Greiner SK ，Kadmon M ，Lechner V ，Roos M ，Schimmel M ，Strube W ，Temizel S ，Uhrmacher L ，Kunz M ... -  《-》