Innovative technologies in psychiatry education: a systematic review.

Effective communication and empathy are widely recognized as fundamental competencies in medical practice, closely linked to better patient outcomes and safer care []. Strong communication skills have been shown to improve patients’ adherence to treatment plans, enhance satisfaction with care, and are associated with reduced medical errors []. Likewise, physician empathy, the ability to understand a patient’s feelings and perspective, positively influences health outcomes []. For example, higher clinician empathy has been associated with shorter illness durations and improved chronic disease indicators in patients []. Given these benefits, medical education bodies now emphasize communication and empathy training as core elements of the curriculum. Many accreditation standards explicitly require that medical programs provide formal instruction in interpersonal communication with patients, families, and colleagues. Accordingly, contemporary medical students are expected not only to master biomedical knowledge but also to develop the communication skills and human understanding essential for patient-centered care. Despite broad consensus on its importance, teaching communication in medical schools has historically faced challenges. In the past, communication training was not fully integrated into many curricula and infrequently evaluated using rigorous outcome measures []. Over the past two decades, educational initiatives have increasingly sought to address this gap. Pioneering programs have demonstrated that a structured communication skills curriculum can significantly improve students’ abilities to build rapport, information exchange, and shared decision-making with patients []. For instance, a meta-analysis of medical humanities programs by Zhang et al. demonstrated a significant increase in empathy among medical students, with the strongest effects observed in short-term interventions lasting less than four months []. Additionally, a review of clinical role-play interventions showed that supervised role-playing not only promoted reflection and insight among students acting as patients and therapists but also benefited peers observing the sessions, ultimately enhancing students’ involvement, self-efficacy, and empathic abilities in mental health practice []. These successes, along with guidelines from accrediting bodies, have prompted many institutions to introduce communication workshops, courses, or longitudinal modules early in training. However, the scope and timing of such training still vary widely. In many programs, communication is taught in a single stand-alone course or at discrete points (e.g., a workshop on breaking bad news), rather than reinforced continuously across all years []. Fully integrated curricula – combining didactics, experiential practice, and ongoing assessment throughout medical school – remain the exception rather than the norm []. This inconsistency in curricular integration means that students’ exposure to communication skills training can be fragmented, potentially limiting its impact. Moreover, students are not a homogeneous group, and their values and priorities evolve, and generational differences may shape how they approach learning, interpersonal relationships, and patient expectations. This underscores the importance of exploring students’ voices to capture what makes communication training meaningful and effective for them.