Communication skills training for dental students.
It is important to teach future health professionals about human interaction, a process that will underlie their technical procedures throughout their careers. In the past there have been problems with student acceptance of such teaching. This paper reports a promising attempt to increase the perceived relevance and credibility of a course in communication skills for dental students. Two important features of this course are (1) the use of video-taped communication vignettes, derived from actual dental office situations, to increase the perceived relevance of the program for the dental student and (2) the use of selected clinical dental faculty members as group facilitators to increase the credibility of the program.
D003142:Communication; D003479:Curriculum; D003812:Dentist-Patient Relations; D004497:Education, Dental; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009515:New Jersey; D013335:Students, Dental