Should we use philosophy to teach clinical communication skills?

Abstract

Effective communication between the doctor and patient is crucial for good quality healthcare. Yet, this form of communication is often problematic, which may lead to several negativeconsequences for both patients and doctors. Clinical communication skills have becomeimportant components of medical training programmes. The traditional approach is to teachstudents particular communication skills, such as listening to patients and asking open-endedquestions. Despite their importance, such training approaches do not seem to be enough todeliver medical practitioners who are able and committed to communicate effectively withpatients. This might be due to the pervasive negative influence of the medical profession’s(mistaken) understanding of itself as a natural science on doctor–patient communication.Doctors who have been trained according to a positivist framework may consider their onlyresponsibility to be the physical treatment of physical disorders. They may thus have littleregard for the patient’s psychological and social world and by extension for communicationwith the patient and/or their caregivers. To address this problem, I propose a curriculum,based on the academic field of philosophy, for teaching clinical communication