COMMUNICATION SKILLS TRAINING IN MEDICINE DEGREES AT ANDALUSIA'S PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES: AN ETHICAL MATTER

In contexts where communication skills can be learnt and taught, they become an ethical matter as far as the proper provision of healthcare is concerned. Communication skills bestow greater empathy to exchanges with the patients and they are necessary to improve the ways of relationship between physicians and patients. This study analyses the Medicine degrees program at public universities in Andalusia. This study takes this Spanish region as a reference to evaluate the communication training in Public Medicine Schools, and offers them some suggestions to improve medical skill communication. The multidisciplinary dimension of communication skills training could be a vital tool in encouraging certain types of patient behaviour. The ever-increasing frequency of assaults by patients on the medical staff attending them are the ultimate proof that this dimension is currently lacking. We shall also examine communication skills training as a key facet of the social responsibility intrinsically associated with the medical profession. Our research method involves firstly a review of the documents reflecting the current situation as far as skills training of the medical staff is concerned, and secondly an analysis of the program followed in courses taught at Andalusia's Medicine Schools. Therefore the study will demonstrate a scarcity in formal education on skills communication in Medicine degrees of the Andalusian Public University. The paper concludes that real communication training appears after students have completed their superior studies at Public Medicine Schools when they learn physician - patient relationship at the treatment room by the trial and error method.