Medical Education: Guidelines for Effective Teaching of Managing Challenging Patient Encounters

Health care providers require strong communication skills to effectively interact with and assist patients on a daily basis. However, medical professionals and trainees are often not equipped with the tools necessary to conduct productive exchanges, especially with challenging patient encounters. Communicating thoughtfully can become extremely challenging when patients exhibit problematic behaviors or attitudes. The following guidelines-inspired by a workshop for medical students at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) and further developed by the authors' interdisciplinary experiences and research-offer comprehensive criteria for medical instructors to lead an experiential seminar on how students can succeed in challenging patient encounters.