Effect of communications training on medical student performance.

Context: Although physicians' communication skills have been found to be related to clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction, teaching of communication skills has not been fully integrated into many medical school curricula or adequately evaluated with large-scale controlled trials.

Objective: To determine whether communications training for medical students improves specific competencies known to affect outcomes of care.

Design And Setting: A communications curriculum instituted in 2000-2001 at 3 US medical schools was evaluated with objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs).