[The dialogue of prescribing. Gaps and possibilities for improvement with a brief interactive seminar]

The recordings of 24 medical consultations at an outpatient clinic show that residents can explain quite well the rationale and modalities of treatment. While being founded on secure knowledge in the biomedical domain fewer bases were encountered regarding the affective side of doctor-patient interactions. In this respect residents often neglect important elements for a prescription during consultation such as reiterations of complaints, mention of the diagnosis, explanation of the patients' role for control of therapy and repetition of specific points of the conversation in order to check the patients' understanding. Control tests three months after a special training seminar revealed that important progress was realized in all deficient domains.