vetpad

I’ve just recently participated in communication training for trainers – a fairly stressful event for a group of what I would consider to be professional vets\nurses\managers.

Now that made me think about how stressful students might find this sort of training and whether we might need to consider a gentler approach for them. Talking with a colleague who shared my concerns made me even more interested in this possibility and looking at Linda’s blog entry on the Calgary Cambridge method (that is being used as a model) added a little more impetus to my exploration.

My visit yesterday to the Copenhagen vet school (thanks Søren for arranging it at such short notice!) was very valuabe in many respects and I think the way Rikke Langebæk is approaching communication skills with her students, may just be that gentler way that I was thinking about. One subtle (but I think significant difference) is that Rikke doesn’t use trained actors but plays the role of the client herself having built up a relationship with the students. Part of the preparation of students involves discussing video clips of consultations that go well and also some that don’t. Fun is a big and important part of the session. None of this knocks Calgary Cambridge per say, but I believe the subtelties of how the session is run could be very significant.

I’m wondering if the use of actors might then be reserved for students who have already been gently introduced to communication skills with someone they know and respect and who is actually not quite as skilled as the actor in playing a role – for me (and I believe for the experienced emergency medicine clinician who played the 2nd year vet student trying to get information from the very stressed client about their collapsed puppy) the actor was so good it was like reality, only this time - to add to the stress there were 9 staff observing too!