Rome Foundation — AGA Institute Communication
Skills Workshop

Saturday Agenda

• Simulated Interview Demonstration of Patient and her Husband
  - Douglas A. Drossman, MD, Albena Halpert, MD, Davis Stillson - 17 minutes
  In this video Dr. Drossman interviews a simulated patient, Ms. Smith (played by Dr. Halpert) who has IBS and her husband. The members of the audience created this scenario where the husband is seen as "intrusive" to the interview process. Dr. Drossman demonstrates how he would handle this challenging interview situation and also called on the audience to make comments and suggestions.
  
• Facilitated Small Group Discussion of a Difficult Clinical Interaction - 18 minutes
  This small group session involved a challenging clinical interaction presentation by a gastroenterologist. He discussed a patient who presented to his office in an angry and somewhat threatening fashion. The facilitated discussion that ensues is different from a typical case presentation since the focus is on personal reactions, thoughts and feelings. This is similar to a "Balint Group" where the participants can ask question and offer suggestions to help increase understanding of the issues and to help the presenter improve his interactions in the future.
• Interviews with Two Patients having IBS - Albena Halpert, MD - 22 minutes
  Dr. Albena Halpert interviews two patients with IBS about their symptom history, their interactions with physicians and the impact of the illness on their lives. In particular we learn about what factors enhanced the patient physician relationship. Several key recommendations are also made as a way to move on in their lives while adapting to the illness.

• Communication from a Multicultural Context - Saypol, Chang, Halpert, Aderoju, Drossman
  This session includes interactions relating to patients from different countries thus providing a cross-cultural context in the area of communication. Patients included those from Nigeria, Mexico and Russia.
• Multi-cultural Introduction and Nigerian Patient Interview - 22 minutes
• Hispanic/Latino Patient Interview - 18 minutes
• Russian Patient Interview - 20 minutes
• Facilitated Role plays - Drossman/Chang or Drossman/Chey or Halpert/Chang, or Halpert/Chey
  Role Plays done in 2 smaller groups - The audience was broken into doctor-patient pairs. Each pair had the opportunity to play a patient having a medical problem with one vignette and a doctor interviewing his/her partner as a patient for the other vignette. Information gained from the role-plays was later communicated to the group.
  • Role-play with Simulated Patients Group One - 53 minutes
  • Role-play with Simulated Patients Group Two - 33 minutes