Integration of a doctor/patient-communication-training into clinical teaching examples from the reform-curricula of Heidelberg and Dresden Universities

It is an important demand of educational reforms to improve the skills of the communication with patients. To reach this goal neither interdisciplinary courses nor tutorials with paper-cases are sufficient. This is the reason why teaching modules including a training to improve doctor-patient-communication were integrated into the reform-curricula at the universities of Heidelberg (Heidelberger Curriculum Medicale, HEICUMED) and Dresden (Dresdner Integrated Patient-Oriented Learning, DIPOL). These modules were originated in cooperation of psychosomatic/psychotherapeutic clinics with representatives of other departments, which provides a chance to integrate psychosomatic issues into the teaching of other disciplines and to promote basic psychosomatic competences. The concept, the realization, and the results of the evaluation of these teaching modules will be described. The evaluation showed that the students rated them as mainly positive, as more effective than traditional learning and that the training improved their self-efficacy related to communicative competences.