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Difficulties in Learning and Teaching Patient Interviewing

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Teaching Professional Attitudes and Basic Clinical Skills to Medical Students

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Abstract

My first encounter with a patient made me doubt whether I had chosen the right profession. It was during the preclinical course on physical examination in the fourth of the 6-year program of my medical school. I introduced myself, asked my first question, and dried up. The patient was a kind lady of about 50. Perceiving my embarrassment, she tried to fill the void by asking questions about myself. I suspect that by the end of the encounter she knew more about me than I did about her.

Previous versions of parts of this chapter were published in: Benbassat J, Baumal R. Teaching doctor patient interviewing skills using an integrated learner and teacher-centered approach. Am J Med Sci. 2001;322:349–357. With permission by Wolters Kluwer. Baumal R, Benbassat J. Current trends in the educational approach for teaching interviewing skills to medical students. Isr Med Ass J. 2008;10:552–555. With permission of the Israel Medical Association; Benbassat J, Baumal R. A proposal for overcoming problems in teaching interviewing skills to medical students. Adv Health Sci Educ. 2009;14:441–450. With permission by Springer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smokler Center for Health Policy Research, Mayers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, Jerusalem, Israel

    Jochanan Benbassat

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  1. Jochanan Benbassat
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Correspondence to Jochanan Benbassat .

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Benbassat, J. (2015). Difficulties in Learning and Teaching Patient Interviewing. In: Teaching Professional Attitudes and Basic Clinical Skills to Medical Students. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20089-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20089-7_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20088-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20089-7

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