A collaboration on teaching communication by text

Since the start of the pandemic, text-based communication with patients has become increasingly common. Leicester Medical School introduced experiential teaching in this field in 2014 but identified a need to develop teaching on the key skills required for effective consultations. Shout 85258 offers a text messaging support service for anyone who is struggling with their mental health. They have developed an evidence-based training programme enabling volunteers to deliver quality crisis support via the medium of text messaging.

Leicester Medical School and Shout 85258 collaborated, developing a small group teaching session for delivery to second-year medical students. The training programme and framework developed by Shout 85258 was used as the basis for a 1.5-hour session with didactic teaching and experiential role play. It was hoped that the collaboration would raise the profile of Shout 85258 in the student body.

The students enjoyed the mixture of didactic teaching and role play. They saw the relevance of the topic and recognised the key difficulties of text-based consultations such as in rapport building. Tutors valued the structure of the session and the framework provided. The session raised the profile of Shout 85258 amongst students and tutors. Further evaluation is needed to measure changes in the use of the service or volunteering by students following the session.

Text-based consultation is an increasingly important area of communication in health care. Collaborating with a charitable organisation allowed sharing of established best practice in this area and raised the profile of the charity within the student body.