O.33.5 - Medical students learn patient-centered communication from patients with chronic conditions: Presenter(s): Anne Marie Rieffestahl, University of Copenhagen & Copenhagen Academy for Medical Education and Simulation, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark

Despite patient-centered communication has been recognized in medical education for decades, it has been reported that medical students detach from the patient during medical school and that their empathy declines. In addition, poor communication with doctors has been shown as one of the most common problems in patient complaints, which indicate that patient-centered communication training needs to be developed further. Therefore, many educational initiatives engage patients' experiences but there is no explicit understanding about how patients contribute to the process of educating medical students. The context for this study is a learning situation in which medical students have communication training with patients with chronic conditions in a simulation lab. This provides opportunity to investigate what medical students learn from patients and how they learn it. This qualitative study involves four focus groups with each 3–7 participants, 2 paired interviews and 8 individual semi-structured interviews (30–90 min) with 32 medical students, who had attended the communication course. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematic analysis was applied inductively and organized into four main themes. Learning from patients provided medical students opportunities to 1) see the world through the patients' eyes, 2) understand the diversity of patients' needs, and 3) recognize the importance of matching patients' and doctors' perspectives. Consequently, 4) students expressed challenges in interacting with the patients when performing the role as 'medical expert'. Difficulty empathizing became visible in the students' interaction with patients. The patients' authentic contributions provided the students with unique opportunities to engage with their own emotions and capacity for empathy. However, for students to benefit from this affective practical training, they need guidance to balance professional and personal aspects in encounters. Perhaps there is a need to introduce the 'doctor as person' in medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]