Graduate Medical Education

Interpersonal Skills and Communication

Communication with Colleagues

Instruction in Communication with Colleagues may include settings such as standardized communication around handoff, clinical teaching; role modeling; and interactive workshops or seminars, when aspects of these types of communications can be more easily discussed.

Here are a number of other resources that may also be useful to you in the development and implementation of program's approach to competency and outcomes assessment and improvement. The information contained in these approaches reflects those undertaken by your UMMC's colleagues, as well as others in your profession to develop and implement the Interpersonal Skills and Communication competency within their program or institution.

The Institute for Healthcare for Improvement has various resources available to improve communications. The SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation) technique provides a framework for communication between members of the health care team about a patient's condition. SBAR is an easy-to-remember, concrete mechanism useful for framing any conversation, especially critical ones, requiring a clinicians immediate attention and action. It allows for an easy and focused way to set expectations for what will be communicated and how between members of the team, which is essential for developing teamwork and fostering a culture of patient safety. More information on this article is found at their website by clicking here.

The Association of Perioperative Nurses has provided a Perioperative Hand Off Tool Kit found by clicking here.

The Bayer Institute seeks to improve the communication between clinician and patient through three major activities: education, research and advocacy. An annotated bibliography on Clinician Patient Communication is found by clicking here. Other information about their mission and work is found at http://www.healthcarecomm.org/.

The End of Life/Palliative Care Research Center (EPERC) is a centralized comprehensive resource for hospice and palliative physician educators. To access the EPERC website visit http://www.eperc.mcw.edu.

The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center supports and advances compassionate health care. More information about the Schwartz Center at its resources can be found at http://www.theschwartzcenter.org.

Macy Initiative in Health Care Communication is an initiate to develop a state of the art , innovative, comprehensive communication skills curriculum grounded in a set of core competencies that should be mastered by every graduated physician. More information about the faculty development and other activities is found at http://nyumacy.med.nyu.edu.

Resources from the American Board of Internal Medicine are found at http://www.abim.org/resoruces/publications/index.shtm.

RESOURCES:

ACGME has provided a Virtual Program Director's Handbook. You may click on the document name to access these resources, or may visit the ACGME website at www.acgme.org.

Common Program Requirements and Common Program Requirements for One Year Fellowships, both effective 7/1/11, are available at the ACGME website. ACGME also has provided a Program Director's Guide to the Common Program Requirements that became effective 7/1/11.

UMMC has provided a Program Director Guide with examples of individual learning plans, and self-assessment by the resident resources for your use.

This page was last updated on: February 5, 2013.