Clerkship enhancement of interpersonal skills.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this research was to determine if students improve interpersonal skills as the third year progresses despite the lack of any specific curriculum or teaching methods.


METHODS
Third-year students completed 1 of 3 16-week sequential clerkship blocks. Each student completed a clinical performance examination before and after clerkship consisting of a videotaped standardized patient interview and physical examination. Videotapes were randomly assigned to communication faculty for evaluation.


RESULTS
Although the majority (73%) of students improved during their block, 17% showed no improvement, and 12% had deficient interpersonal skills after their clerkship.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite the lack of skill-directed curriculum, most medical students showed improved interpersonal skill performance after a 16-week clerkship. Developing an interpersonal curriculum for all third-year students may not be necessary. Because faculty are being asked to do more with less, we believe efforts focused on individual students during the third year will be more productive.
Burchard
Kenneth W
KW
Department of Surgery, Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA.
Rowland
Pamela A
PA
Berman
Norman B
NB
Hanissian
Paul D
PD
Carney
Patricia A
PA
D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D003142:Communication; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009513:New Hampshire; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013337:Students, Medical; D014743:Videotape Recording