Training Future Health Professionals in Communication Skills

Abstract

Communicating effectively is essential to any human interaction and especially relevant in the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients, as communication difficulties in these contexts can affect the quality of healthcare delivery. Training future health professionals regarding their communicative skills, namely on how they should inform patients about their health status, diseases, and/or treatments; on establishing empathic relationships; and on promoting personal reflection on their actions, is extremely important. This chapter illustrates how communicative skills can be promoted in the training of future health professionals, aided by the experience and expertise gained in training future professionals in a degree course in Pharmacy at the School of Health in the University of Algarve, Portugal.