TEACHING CARE RELATIONSHIP TO MEDICAL STUDENTS

Introduction/Objectives : In the first stages of the medical training, students confront with suffering, illness and death. The university education allows the passage of the profane culture to the medical knowledge, but rarely proposes a framework where the clinical experience can be thought. Since 1980, the Department of Medical Psychology of the University of Paris Creteil proposes to medical students role-playing training and Balint-like groups in these first times of medical education, when they first meet patients. Methods : All students in the third year of Medical College (N=140) required to participate to three sequences (5 sessions each) of training : in the first one, clinical examples illustrate medical psychology concepts ; in the second one (balint-like groups), students discuss their own clinical situations; in the third one, they are invited to experience difficult clinical situations in the role-playing sessions. The groups (of at most 20 participants) are leaded by a general practitioner and a psychologist or psychiatrist. At the end of these three sequences, students must write a report on a clinical case. This report is not graded ; only the student presence is considered for the training validation. Results/ Conclusion : The students’ participation during the sessions and the quality of the students’ reports are nowadays the only evaluation of this training. The quality of cases’ analysis point out that the Medical Psychology training helps students to recognise the subjective aspects of medical practice, the importance of doctor-patient relationship and the interest of the patient-centred care.