A collaboration on teaching and assessing triadic consultation skills

Teaching triadic consultation skills is becoming increasingly prevalent at medical schools but is included by few schools in summative assessments. We describe a collaboration between Leicester and Cambridge Medical Schools to share teaching practice and the development of an objective structure clinical examination (OSCE) station to assess these important skills.

We agreed on the broad components of the process skills of a triadic consultation and wrote a framework. We used the framework to develop OSCE criteria and suitable case scenarios. The triadic consultation OSCEs were used in our summative assessments at Leicester and Cambridge.

Student feedback on teaching was largely positive. The OSCEs at both institutions performed effectively provided a fair and reliable test and had good face validity. Student performance was similar in both schools.

Our collaboration provided peer support and enabled the production of a framework for teaching and assessing triadic consultations that is likely to be generalisable to other medical schools. We were able to reach a consensus on what skills should be included in the teaching of triadic consultations and to co-design an OSCE station to effectively assess those skills.

Collaboration between two medical schools using a constructive alignment principle allowed the efficient development of effective teaching and assessment of triadic consultations.