Assessing physicians' interpersonal skills via videotaped encounters: A new approach for the Royal College of General Practitioners Membership examination

The Royal College of General Practitioners' Membership examination, the onl y postgraduate qualification in family medicine in the United Kingdom, has developed a direct assessment of candidates' interpersonal skills performan ce using videotaped consultations of the actual doctor-patient encounters. At present about 1,200 doctors are examined each year. The methodology has been developed and piloted over a period of eight years. The central tenet of the methodology is a clear definition, which is known both to the candid ate and to the examiner, of the clinical and consulting competencies that a re required to be demonstrated in order to pass the examination. The candid ate is required to provide evidence of his or her competence usually by sel ecting appropriate patient encounters that demonstrate the fulfillment of t he required performance criteria, effectively producing a portfolio of his ol her communicative competence. The methodology is intended to encourage t he learning and teaching of communication skills by malting it part of an i mportant examination and clearly defining the competencies required to pass . Reliability has been demonstrated to be satisfactory and refinement of th e mal king processes is likely to improve this further.