When Doctor Means Teacher: An Interactive Workshop on Patient-Centered Education

INTRODUCTION: Increasingly, health care is delivered through a patient-centered model, and patients engage in shared decision-making with their medical providers. As a result, medical educators are placing more emphasis on patient-centered communication skills. However, few published curricula currently offer a comprehensive discussion of skills for providing patient-centered education (PCE), a key component of shared decision-making. We developed an interactive, two-session workshop aiming to improve students’ abilities to provide PCE. METHODS: Our workshop included didactic instruction, group discussion, and interactive simulations. The workshop was delivered to 50 clinical clerkship medical students. The first session concentrated on educating patients about their diagnoses, while the second session focused on providing patients with information about medications and other treatments. We used detailed and realistic role-play exercises as a core tool for student practice and demonstration of confidence. To evaluate the workshop, we used pre- and postsurveys. RESULTS: The sessions were well received by students, who strongly agreed both before and after the workshop that PCE was an important skill. Students also strongly agreed that the role-play exercises were an effective tool for learning PCE. They demonstrated significant improvements in their confidence to name important elements of PCE and to deliver PCE in the future. DISCUSSION: This workshop fills a curricular gap in offering a comprehensive and interactive curriculum for improving students’ abilities to provide critical PCE. The format and content should be easily adaptable to various disciplines, learners, and teaching modalities.