Dr Jonathan Silverman
Associate Clinical Dean
Director of Communication Studies
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 769290
Email: js355@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Ms Karen Enright
PA & Administrative Manager
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 769286
Email: ke242@medschl.cam.ac.uk
COMMUNICATION SKILLS TEACHING:
A FOUR DAY RESIDENTIAL COURSE FOR UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE COMMUNICATION
TEACHERS
MADINGLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE
MONDAY 16 – THURSDAY 19 MAY 2011
Jonathan Silverman (Director of Communication Studies and Associate Dean, School of Clinical Medicine,
University of Cambridge), Sally Quilligan (Lecturer in Clinical Communication Skills, School of Clinical
Medicine, University of Cambridge) and Marcy Rosenbaum (Associate Professor of Family Medicine,
University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine) would like to invite undergraduate and postgraduate
communication skills teachers to our 15th National Communication Skills Teaching course to be held at
Madingley Hall this May.
Feedback from previous years’ participants

well organised with excellent leaders

excellent learning climate - comfort and safety

great to be part of a small group and feel how supportive and perceptive it became; Madingley was beautiful and
very relaxing and lovely to spend time talking to people

diversity of tools for communication skills teaching - excited by group work, actors and video

I will be able to structure my teaching more explicitly and when things don’t go well I feel I will be able to work out
why more successfully

I developed my understanding of the Calgary-Cambridge approach – and met some people who have inspired my
thinking, and learned about some research I wasn’t previously familiar with

insights into how to use role-play, video, simulated patients and rehearsal of specific problem areas

group work - most effective I’ve experienced ever

inspiration and refreshment from new ideas and approaches

further convinced that this is the basic method to use in communication skills teaching

this has been a fantastic course and I will be strongly recommending it to others
The aims of the course are:

to enable teachers to teach interviewing skills in a range of contexts from undergraduate and postgraduate medicine
to nursing and pharmacy

to increase teachers’ confidence and skills in their teaching of communication skills

to provide a forum to share our experiences and move the teaching of this subject forward

to explore the “what” of communication teaching by identifying those skills that make a difference and are worth
teaching and learning and by exploring how to place these skills into an overall structure

to explore the “how” of communication teaching by identifying the principles that help learners to learn
communication skills, by experiencing at first hand agenda-led outcome-based analysis and descriptive feedback
and by enabling participants to receive feedback on their own teaching


to provide the theoretical and research evidence that validates the use of individual communication skills and to
examine how to introduce research evidence and teaching exercises into experiential discussion
to consider how to structure a communication curriculum within a number of contexts including both postgraduate
and undergraduate teaching
What methods will be used?
Participants on the course will be deliberately limited to 16. The course will be led by Jonathan Silverman, Sally Quilligan
and Marcy Rosenbaum. We will be using the Calgary-Cambridge approach as the prime approach to teaching. The
course will be based on video analysis plus participant role-play and rehearsal and will utilise actors to explore the use of
simulated patients in the communication curriculum. We shall work mostly in two small groups and use role-play with
simulated patients and participants’ own pre-recorded videos to provide the raw material to help us to explore the
consultation together. We shall provide small group work that combines a mix of experiential work, skills teaching and
presentation of research findings. We would like to build on the participants’ previous experiences of communication
teaching and identify those aspects of communication teaching that work well for them and those areas that have proved
difficult. We can then tease out principles of communication skills facilitation and examine alternative strategies in order
to increase our teaching repertoire.
We shall try hard to create a safe and supportive environment from the outset and the emphasis will be on supportive
group work in a comfortable environment. To help achieve this, we are fortunate to be able to use Madingley Hall, which
offers excellent conference facilities, accommodation and food in very relaxing surroundings. We feel that it is important
that the course be residential which at Madingley will not be much of a hardship!
A more detailed timetable will be sent at a later date but the course will run from 10.30am Monday 16 May to 4.30pm
Thursday 19 May 2011. The total cost to participants will be £1,100. If anyone would like any more information,
please contact Karen Enright on the number above or complete the attached application form.
If anyone interested in this course finds these dates difficult, we will be running the course again in 2012 from
Tuesday 8 to Friday 11 May at the same venue.
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Silverman, Sally Quilligan and Marcy Rosenbaum
Clinical Communication Skills
The School of Clinical Medicine
Addenbrooke’s NHS Trust, Box 111
Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0SP
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 769289