title: Using role-plays to teach palliative medicine.
abstract: Teaching of communication skills in Palliative Medicine can be achieved using a three hour exercise involving role-plays, a time of feedback and discussion, a teaching video and a reading list. Using this teaching method self-ratings of perceived skills recorded on a questionnaire before and four weeks after the exercises showed a significant increase in both undergraduates and postgraduates. The validity of these self-ratings as a tool to measure communication skills was assessed by correlating the self-ratings with the ratings given by the participant and the observers after the clinical scenarios from the questionnaire were simulated in role-plays.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, University of Otago Medical School, New Zealand.
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Charlton
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004521:Educational Measurement; D009520:New Zealand; D010166:Palliative Care; D012381:Role Playing; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*