What parents and carers think medical students should be learning about communication with children and families.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to dynamically engage with parents and carers of children treated in a large children's hospital as experts by experience, to find out what they thought medical students should be learning about communicating with children and families in order to inform our communication teaching.

METHODS: We used focus groups to facilitate parents and carers in articulating the communication issues they felt were important for medical students to learn. These data were analysed, using qualitative and quantitative methods, to produce a survey for a Delphi consultation. The results of this stage were mapped onto the Calgary-Cambridge framework for the medical interview.

RESULTS: There was considerable overlap of the data on the Calgary-Cambridge framework. There was, however, an emphasis by respondents on perceptual skills, self-awareness and partnership. Within the main tasks of the Calgary-Cambridge framework, new objectives emerged, including giving information in the right place, and the importance of the family in the multidisciplinary team. A new main task, Preparation, was highlighted.

CONCLUSION: Active collaboration with parents and carers revealed areas for enhancement in our communication skill teaching, particularly with regard to relational and perceptual skills.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Ways of including effective teaching of perceptual skills and the relational and humanistic aspects of communication must be explored in order to meet the needs of child patients and their families.