title: Development and evaluation of a risk communication curriculum for medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop, pilot, and evaluate a curriculum for teaching clinical risk communication skills to medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  A new experience-based curriculum, "Risk Talk," was developed and piloted over a 1-year period among students at Tufts University School of Medicine. An experimental study of 2nd-year students exposed vs. unexposed to the curriculum was conducted to evaluate the curriculum's efficacy. Primary outcome measures were students' objective (observed) and subjective (self-reported) risk communication competence; the latter was assessed using an Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) employing new measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-eight 2nd-year students completed the curriculum, and exhibited significantly greater (p<.001) objective and subjective risk communication competence than a convenience sample of 24 unexposed students. New observational measures of objective competence in risk communication showed promising evidence of reliability and validity. The curriculum was resource-intensive.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The new experience-based clinical risk communication curriculum was efficacious, although resource-intensive. More work is needed to develop the feasibility of curriculum delivery, and to improve the measurement of competence in clinical risk communication.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Risk communication is an important advanced communication skill, and the Risk Talk curriculum provides a model educational intervention and new assessment tools to guide future efforts to teach and evaluate this skill.
authors.affiliation: Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Maine Medical Center, Portland, USA; Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, USA. Electronic address: hanp@mmc.org.
authors.forename: Paul K J
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical and Healthcare Education, St George's, University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Joekes
authors.affiliation: Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, Hanover, USA; Cochrane Institute for Primary Care & Public Health, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK.
authors.forename: Glyn
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Elwyn
authors.affiliation: Meyers Primary Care Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, USA.
authors.forename: Kathleen M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Mazor
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical and Healthcare Education, St George's, University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sedgwick
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical and Healthcare Education, St George's, University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ibison
authors.affiliation: Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, USA.
authors.forename: John B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017145:Models, Educational; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods*; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D012306:Risk; D013337:Students, Medical; D014481:United States
keywords: Communication skills; Medical education; Risk communication