The simulated physician – a novel concept in communication training

Background: Physician-patient communication trainings with simulated patients are well established at many medical schools. However, a substantial amount of communication in health care takes place between physicians. Despite this fact, physician-physician communication is rarely trained at medical schools. Aim: We aim at to fill this gap in communication training by developing and implementing a scenario of a physician-physician encounter for 6th year medical students using simulated physicians. Methods: In the scenario, students have to obtain a complete handover from a senior doctor who is about to end the shift. To ensure completeness, students are advised to adhere to the SBAR schema [http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/SBARToolkit.aspx]. The senior physicians are played by lay actors, selected from our pool of simulated patients. Besides the usual role training, they received scenario specific medical information. After the communication training, students filled out a questionnaire concerning awareness of the importance to learn physician-physician communication and the authenticity of the simulated physicians. Results: A clear majority of students agreed that this communication training raised their awareness for the importance of effective physician-physician communication and that they experienced the simulated physicians as authentic. Discussion: We showed that communication training with simulated physicians is feasible. We will continue using simulated physicians and plan to develop additional scenarios with them