THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS AS AN ESSENTIAL COMPETENCE OF PHYSICIAN PROFESSIONALISM

Abstract

The article adduces the formulation the modern concept of professional (medical) communicative competence and to propose approaches for its effective implementation in the system of training of future medical professionals.

The communicative competence of a physician is considered as an intellectual and motivationally determined socio-professional characteristic based on communicative abilities, skills and knowledge that allows the doctor to independently and responsibly implement effective and adequate communicative actions in specific situations of interpersonal interaction. Mastering this competence involves the assimilation of such constituent elements as initiation of communication, information gathering, clarification and planning of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, the completion of conversation, the use of various communication techniques, etc. Traditionally, students’ mastering the communication skills takes place after studying a number of disparate theoretical subjects practically by the mechanism of taking over the behavior style of physician-instructor who served as an example. However, today such an approach has a number of shortcomings. Current international experience shows that mastery of this competence should start before the beginning of work in the clinic and requires the allocation of a separate cycle of training for the formation of initial communication skills. This approach was implemented during 2018–2019 academic year at I. Horbachevsky Ternopil State Medical University. Besides, the manual “Communicative skills in medicine” was published to provide theoretical and methodological basis for the formation of students’ communicative competence.

A modern highly skilled medical specialist, for the sake of competitiveness in the labor market, must perfectly possess communicative skills. The ability to communicate effectively could be acquired, so it should be developed and trained. In order to meet the growing demands on the level of communicative skills, it is necessary to optimize curricula and use special pedagogical approaches when preparing medical specialists on both the diploma and postgraduate level. It is expedient to develop and implement a cross-cutting program on medical communication that will provide a methodological and systematic approach for transforming theoretical knowledge and initial communication skills into the full communicative competence of a future medical specialist.