Measuring the Impact of an Interactive Communication Skills Curriculum on Internal Medicine Residents

Our novel intervention adapted curricula around effective skills used to navigate common communication challenges in clinical practice. These skills were selected after determining patterns from multiple communication sessions delivered to over 6,000 healthcare providers. Our main goal was to enhance communication with patients by helping residents gain confidence and competence using these under-utilized communication skills, regardless of the communication challenge. Over the course of three, 1-hour long sessions on communication in the 2017-2018 academic year, internal medicine residents learned three of these highly effective and often under-utilized skills; reflective listening, responding to emotion and reframing, respectively.