[From stand-alone solution to longitudinal communication curriculum--development and implementation at the Faculty of...

At the Faculty of Medicine in Heidelberg, implementation of an interdisciplinary longitudinal curriculum was started in 2001 with the goal of achieving sustained promotion of communicative and clinical competences. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and implementation of Heidelberg's longitudinal communication curriculum. Furthermore, innovative aspects and strategies are discussed. The methodological approaches for development and implementation were Kern's "Six-step Approach" and a SWOT analysis. The process resulted in an innovative communication curriculum that starts with an integrated curriculum for developing clinical and communicative competence in the pre-clinical phase and continues in the clinical phase with medical communication and interactive training. Satisfaction with the communication curriculum and its effectiveness were rated highly by students. Residents who had graduated from Faculty of Medicine in Heidelberg rated the extent to which they had communicative competencies at the time of their graduation at their disposal significantly higher than residents who had graduated from the other 4 medical faculties in Baden-Württemberg. The experiences gained in Heidelberg can be applied by other faculties.