Training clinical teachers in psychiatry to teach interviewing skills to medical students

To study the feasibility of training all clinical teachers in psychiatry to teach interviewing skills to medical students, 24 (unselected clinicians were assigned to one of four different training methods. They received either experiential or didactic instruction, and their initial teaching sessions were either supervised or unsupervised. A total of 287 medical students subsequently received feedback training from these teachers. While all students showed significant increases in skill after training, those taught by experientially trained teachers showed the greatest gains. Neither supervision nor the teachers' own interviewing skills exerted significant effects on students' performance. It is concluded that with only brief training unselected clinicians can become effective teachers of essential interviewing skills. Feedback training in such skills can, therefore, be incorporated into existing curricula without major disruption of other requirements.