Consultation Skills
Consultation Microskills & Consultaion Task Sheets
What are Micro-Skills?
Microskills are those small (micro) consultation skills that TOGETHER make the consultation effective and efficient. Here’s a list of them and you can find more about each on by clicking on them. What follows is some video demonstration of some of these skills. This should not only help you in your day to day GP consultations but also help you pass the CSA.
- Active Listening
- Agenda Setting
- Breaking Bad News
- Coaching & Counselling
- Computer in the Consultation (how to use)
- Conflict Management
- Data Gathering
- Door-handle remarks
- Empathy & Compassion
- Explanations
- ICE and PSO (person-centred care, practising hollistically & understanding the illness)
- Language Barriers
- LGBTQ – avoiding heterosexual bias in language
- Medical Analogies
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Consultations
- Negotiation & Persuasion
- Non-Violent Communication (NVC) = Compassionate Communication
- Opening Gambits
- Risk and Explaining it
- Screening
- Signposting & Summarising
- Teenagers – how to talk to them
- Telephone Consultations
Picking up and responding to cues
Reading a consultation book or two will definately help you get some of the cores communication skills to consult effectively with patients. Although some people are naturally good at patient-centred consultting and others less so, the good news is that these skills can be learnt. Yes! Even if you are not good at consulting in a person-centred way, with practise you can learn to be as good as those who are naturally good. Of course, the key word here is practise!
Some good consultation books are…
- The Inner Consultation by Roger Neighbour (a great starter esp for ST1s).
- Skills for Communicating with Patients by Silverman et al (one of the best foundation books around – a definite worthwhile read).
- The Doctor’s Communication Handbook by Peter Tate (another foundation book).
- The Naked Consultation by Liz Moulton (covers a variety of tricky scenarios – another definite worthwhile read).
Projecting Interpersonal Skills
Reading a consultation book or two will definately help you get some of the cores communication skills to consult effectively with patients. Although some people are naturally good at patient-centred consultting and others less so, the good news is that these skills can be learnt. Yes! Even if you are not good at consulting in a person-centred way, with practise you can learn to be as good as those who are naturally good. Of course, the key word here is practise!
Some good consultation books are…
- The Inner Consultation by Roger Neighbour (a great starter esp for ST1s).
- Skills for Communicating with Patients by Silverman et al (one of the best foundation books around – a definite worthwhile read).
- The Doctor’s Communication Handbook by Peter Tate (another foundation book).
- The Naked Consultation by Liz Moulton (covers a variety of tricky scenarios – another definite worthwhile read).
