Developing the Skills of Requesting Consultation in the Emergency Department

Aim: One of the basic components of non-technical skills, communication, is of critical importance for healthcare professionals, especially in high-stakes areas such as the emergency department (ED), and consultation is one of the key applications in which communication skills are used. It is aimed to implement a simulation-based training protocol with embedded participant and to evaluate its effectiveness to teach the senior medical students the request for consultation in the ED using a protocol. Material and Methods: The research was a quasi-experimental study and had pretest – posttest single group design. According to Kessler’s 5C model, the “5C Checklist” was used in data collection. After theoretical training session and simulation-based training sessions, 1st and 2nd assessments were made and recorded. Results: During 1st and 2nd assessments, a total of 76 audio recordings of 38 senior students were made and then evaluated by 2 separate evaluators. There was a significant difference in the “identify name of consultant physician” in ‘Contact’ category (p=0.016); “presents a concise story” in the “Communication” category (p <0.001); “specifies timeframe for the consultation” in “Core Question” category (p<0.001). As a result of the assessment of the records by the evaluators, the simulation-based training score was found to be significantly higher (p<0.001). Conclusion: The simulation-based training with embedded participant in our research improved the consultation skills better than the theoretical training alone.