Clinical Skills Unit
Clinical & Communication Skills Office
Jonathan Silverman
Associate Clinical Dean (CCM)
Director of Communication Studies
Tel: 01223 216570
Email: js355@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Joanna Griffiths
Clinical Education Officer
Tel: 01223 586884
Email: jg239@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Carri Vendy
Secretary & Administrative Co-ordinator
Tel: 01223 216570
Email: csu@medschl.cam.ac.uk
School of Clinical Medicine
Box 111
Hills Road
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB2 2SP
Tel: 01223 216570
Fax: 01223 256158
COMMUNICATION SKILLS TEACHING:
A THREE DAY RESIDENTIAL COURSE FOR UNDERGRADUATE TEACHERS,
COURSE ORGANISERS AND DIRECTORS
MADINGLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE
10.30 am Tuesday 16th May – 4.30pm Friday 19th May 2006
Juliet Draper (Consultant in communication skills teaching) and Jonathan Silverman (Director of Communication
Studies and Associate Dean, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge) would like to invite course
organisers and directors in general practice and undergraduate communication skills teachers to our 11th National
Communication Skills Teaching course to be held in May 2006. This three day course, to be held under the auspices of
the School of Clinical Medicine at The University of Cambridge, and also the Director of Postgraduate Department of
General Practice of the Eastern Deanery, has the support of the Association of Course Organisers.
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
What are the aims of the course?

to enable teachers to teach interviewing skills in a range of contexts from undergraduate and postgraduate medicine to
nursing and pharmacy

to enable undergraduate teachers to prepare medical students for effective medical interviewing

to enable course organisers to prepare registrars for summative assessment and the single route of the video
component of the MRCGP by providing high quality communication skills teaching

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 for instance in both the VTS and
undergraduate teaching
1. Undergraduate teaching
We have extensive experience in teaching undergraduates in communication skills using the Calgary-Cambridge approach
and this course will be useful to any undergraduate communication skills teachers who wish to extend their appreciation of
the subject
2. Postgraduate general practice
Why focus on course organisers rather than trainers?
It is our view that a two pronged approach is needed in communication skills teaching. Firstly we need to promote teaching
in training practices to encourage registrars to video themselves and to validate the importance of improving their
communication skills. However, 1 to 1 teaching in the practice is perhaps the most difficult format in which to teach this
subject and so we also need to develop group-work based communication skills teaching within the vocational training
schemes. Group work in supportive peer groups with a knowledgeable leader allows a greater exchange of different
approaches and provides the possibility of feedback and rehearsal through role-play which is now recognised as the
cornerstone of learning communication skills. We aim to provide a forum to share our successes and difficulties here and
move the teaching of this subject forward. There will also be opportunities to look at the difficulties around exploring and
teaching behaviours and attitudes in professional practice.
Over the years, we have found that the mix of ideas from both undergraduate teachers and teachers in postgraduate
general practice has been most rewarding and beneficial to all. Indeed many teachers now teach in both of these and
other contexts.
Do we have anything new to offer?
Over the last 15 years of running communication skills teaching courses for undergraduate teachers, trainers and course
organisers, we have developed a new approach to the safe and constructive method of analysing videos of consultations,
exploring how to introduce research evidence and teaching exercises into experiential group work and how to structure
learning so that learners can assimilate skills and relate them to the consultation as a whole. We have radically changed
our teaching methodology with the help of Professor Suzanne Kurtz and have developed methods that both teachers and
learners find provide a far more productive learning experience. In the last few years, we have focussed particularly on how
to teach the second part of the consultation (explanation and planning and explanation of risk and issues of consent).
Our collaboration has enabled us to define a curriculum for undergraduate and general practice vocational training and
delineate the skills that need to be taught. It has also allowed us to develop a methodology (agenda-led, outcome-based
analysis) which is comprehensive, productive and safe for looking at our consultations. This approach to communication
skills teaching was adopted by the Eastern Deanery and continues to be cascaded into both vocational training and
continuing medical education through a network of committed group-work teachers. Simultaneously, we have developed
an extensive undergraduate curriculum fully integrated throughout the clinical school curriculum in Cambridge
Our previous national courses were enthusiastically received by participants and as a consequence aspects of our
approach are now being adopted in many other regions in the country and in many medical schools in the UK and
internationally. Our practical guide to the content of the communication curriculum, the Calgary-Cambridge Observation
Guide, was originally published in 1996 in Medical Education and our approach to analysing the consultation and providing
feedback is described in two paired articles in the November 1996 and February 1997 issues of Education for General
Practice. Our two books “Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Medicine” by Suzanne Kurtz, Jonathan
Silverman and Julie Draper and “Skills for Communicating with Patients” by Jonathan Silverman, Suzanne Kurtz and Julie
Draper, based on our in-house regional manual, are now in their second edition and were published by Radcliffe Medical
Press at the end of 2005.
What methods will be used?
Participants on the course will be deliberately limited to 16. The course will be co-led by Juliet Draper and Jonathan
Silverman. Our approach on this course will be based on video analysis plus participant role-play and rehearsal. We shall
also utilise actors to explore the use of simulated patients in certain aspects of the communication curriculum. We shall be
working mostly in two small groups and we shall be using participants’ own videos, and role-play with simulated patients, 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 teaching and
examine alternative strategies for us to use.
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 much of a hardship! A more detailed timetable will be sent at a
later date but the course will run from 10.30 am Tuesday 16th May to 4.30pm Friday 19th May 2006. The total cost to
participants is £770.00. If anyone would like any more information, please contact Carri Vendy on the number
above or complete the attached application form.
If any one interested in this course finds these dates difficult, we will be running the course in mid May next year
at the same venue.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Julie Draper and Dr. Jonathan Silverman