Teaching interpersonal skills in physician assistant programmes

Increasing awareness that the technical competence of health professionals must be complemented by a well developed set of interpersonal skills (IPS) has resulted in the rapid growth of the formal teaching of IPS in training programmes for an important group of new health professionals in the United States-physician assistants (PAs). This is a report of a national survey which was part of a study designed to determine the extent and characteristics of IPS teaching. Most PA programmes have a specific course or a section of a large course for the teaching of IPS. Psychologists, physician assistants, and psychiatrists serve as teachers for most of these programmes. The majority of programmes teach process skills (for example, listening, responding), information-gathering skills, and psychological intervention skills (for example, demonstrating empathy). Less than half the programmes report the provision of instruction in one-to-one patient education, team membership skills, sexual and family counselling and self-care for health professionals. Most of the programmes which responded to the survey use videotechnology in teaching or assessing IPS.