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Family Practice Vol. 8, No. 4, 343-346
© Oxford University Press 1991

research-article

Teaching Counselling Skills to Fourth-year Medical Students: A Dilemma Concerning Goals

ROBERT MOORHEAD* and HELEN WINEFIELD**

*Department of Community Medicine, University of Adelaide GPO Box 498, Adelaide, Australia 500l
**Department of Rsychiatry, University of Adelaide GPO Box 498, Adelaide, Australia 5001

Advocacy of communication skills training in medical curricula is common, but this paper highlights some paradoxes which become apparent when such training is instituted. Fourth-year medical students completed a standardized questionnaire measure of empathy, before and after intensive training in counselling and communication in general practice. Low rates of empathetic responding were shown, and no increase occurred after training. The resutts are discussed in terms of an emerging dilemma within medical education and practice, namely the conflict between the traditional view of the doctor as problem-solver and recent evidence of the health benefits of a more patient-centred style of medical practice.


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