Communication Skills in Physician-Adolescent Patient Encounters

Target Population: Primary care pediatricians and family physicians, residents in pediatrics and family medicine, school physicians, military doctors, gynecologists and child and adolescent psychiatrists Objectives: By course completion, participants will improve their skills in obtaining comprehensive medical and psychosocial history from adolescent patients.  They will acquire techniques to separate adolescent patients from their parents, to discuss confidential matters such as eating disorders, sexuality, substance abuse, and violence, and to be authoritative while still being non-judgmental. Course Description: Participants interact with simulated patients and their parents (actors) in scenarios that present typical health problems of teenagers.  Colleagues and debriefing facilitators observe the encounters through one-way glass panels and with the aid of audiovisual recordings. On completion of each encounter, the participant writes his or her clinical impression and receives a confidential feedback from the actor.  Debriefing with experienced facilitators and the whole group of participants follows the simulated sessions, with the use of the recorded encounters, which are watched and discussed.