ACQUISITION OF CLINICAL INTERVIEWING SKILLS OF STUDENTS PREPARING FOR THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

摘要

The ability to gather accurate and complete information is important in scientific endeavors and the field of medicine is no exception. The medical interview is one of the primary methods by which the physician gathers information. His/her method should be no less than that used by the scientist. There are two components to the medical interview: The content, or the specific information, and the process, or the method by which the information is obtained. Traditional methods for teaching interviewing skills to medical students emphasized an on-the-job type of experience with students going out on the wards to interview actual patients. The method had several problems including lack of standardized methods of teaching and evaluating. This dissertation looks at a competency-based method of teaching and evaluating medical interview skills used at The University of Arizona College of Medicine. It uses patient instructors (PIs) to objectively evaluate interviewing skills. PIs are highly trained non-physicians who have been trained to function as patients, teachers, and evaluators. Analysis of the data collected on student interview performance from the classes of 1982-1984 indicated that there was no significant difference in content or process scores due to sex or prior occupational experience in a health-related profession. However, significant differences were found in content and process scores due to the age of the interviewer with students older than the class average scoring higher than the younger students.