This article, published in The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (McDonough, R.P. and Bennett, M.S. (2006, June 15; 70(3): 58) describes the importance of teaching pharmacy students effective communication skills as interpersonal communication skills are vital to a pharmacist, whose role can include counseling patients, educating patients about medications and ensuring adherence to prescriptions, communicating with physicians, or interfacing with associates and drug companies.

The article describes strategies that teachers an use to help their students to learn to establish the Pharmacist/Patient relationship, to interview, educate and counsel a patient and to establish collaborative working relationships with doctors.

This article, published in The Oncologist (Baile, W; Buckman, R; Lenzi, R; Glober, G; Beale, E; & Kudelka, A. 2000;5:302-311) describes a straightforward, practical, six step protocol, "SPIKES", for disclosing unfavorable information—“breaking bad news”—to cancer patients about their illness.

The goal is to enable the clinician to fulfill the four most important objectives of the interview disclosing bad news:

• gathering information from the patient,
• transmitting the medical information,
• providing support to the patient, 
• eliciting the patient’s collaboration in developing a strategy or treatment plan for the future.

Those who have learned the protocol report an increase in their confidence and ability to disclose difficult information to cancer patients.

In this article, communication skills program entitled Oncotalk that has been developed for medical oncology fellows with funding from the National Cancer Institute is described. The program uses educational techniques that are evidence based, and the content is tailored to medical oncology fellows. Components of this program could be adapted to other settings and are available on the following website: http://depts.washington.edu/oncotalk

PDQ (Physician Data Query) is NCI's comprehensive cancer database.

This PDQ cancer information summary provides comprehensive, peer-reviewed information for health professionals about communicating with the cancer patient and his or her family. This summary is reviewed regularly and updated as necessary by the PDQ Supportive and Palliative Care Editorial Board.

Information about the following is included in this summary:

• Unique aspects of communication with cancer patients.
• Factors affecting communication.
• Training in communication skills.

This summary is intended as a resource to inform and assist clinicians and other health professionals who care for cancer patients during and after cancer treatment. It does not provide formal guidelines or recommendations for making health care decisions. Information in this summary should not be used as a basis for reimbursement determinations.

Good communication skills are integral to medical and other healthcare practice. Communication is important not only to professional-patient interaction but also within the healthcare team. The benefits of effective communication include good working relationships and increased patient satisfaction.

This paper aims to raise awareness among the medical profession of the significant issues involved in communication skills training at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

The paper highlights:

• the benefits of good communication skills
• the concerns expressed about inadequate communication skills in the medical profession
• barriers to effective communication
• communication skills in undergraduate and postgraduate education.

Although this paper focuses on doctors, many of its principles are applicable to other healthcare workers.

Tips and strategies for health professionals to use when communicating with patients to improve patient understanding and overcome some of the common barriers to health literacy.

pdf (301kb) Guide for improving communication between clinicians in cancer care. Contains a pro-forma template for communications within a multidisciplinary team.

A brief guide to assist health professionals who have to deliver bad news to patients or discuss difficult topics, such as end of life issues.

A resource for clinicians to support discussions with women diagnosed with DCIS to improve their understanding about their diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and support.

To meet benchmark standards proposed by the Institute of Medicine, IHI has developed a framework to assist leaders to implement the changes required for the proposed improvements.

Theframework can be used in several ways:

• As an organizing structure to understand how the various work activities of health care leaders contribute to the broad aim of transformation and improvement of the care system.
• As an ongoing learning tool
• As an aid for health care leaders to assess and improve their organizations
• As a guide for the design of leadership development programs in health care organizations

Change Champions P/L is a leading Australian change management organisation in the health care sector that offers high quality events, seminars and workshops.

Papers presented at the Investitng in the Health Workforce: Aligning Strategy, Leadership and the Team conference, held in Sydney in November 2009, are available for free download and include:

Developing Clinical Education Leadership - Rachel Tosh

Striving for Clinical Excellence - Belynda Abbott

Investing in Time. Leading with Purpose - Karen Patterson

Preparing for the future! Hunter New England Health's 'Advancing Leadership' Strategy - Nerrida Barton

The Leadership Qualities Framework website brings together all current information about the LQF, the new  standard for outstanding leadership in health service that describes the qualities expected of existing and aspiring leaders both now and in the future; and explains how it can best be used to enhance leadership in your organisation.

The site has been designed for people with no experience of the LQF as well as those who use the LQF on a regular basis. It combines personal development advice with best practice approaches and real-life examples to show how the LQF can be used to support leadership development and other talent management initiatives.

The Medical Leadership Competency Framework (MLCF) has been jointly developed by The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement in conjunction with a wide range of stakeholders.

The Medical Leadership Competency Framework describes the leadership competences doctors need in order to become more actively involved in the planning, delivery and transformation of health services.

The MLCF is a pivotal tool which can be used to:

• Help design of training curricula and development programmes
• Highlight individual strengths and development areas through self assessment and structured feedback from colleagues
• Help with personal development planning and career progression.

The Free Management Library provides easy-to-access, clutter-free, comprehensive resources regarding the leadership and management of yourself, other individuals, groups and organizations.

The Overview of Leadership in Organizations topic assists in understanding the concept and practices of leadership and explores the leader's role in ensuring organisational effectiveness and in managing change.

Sections of the topic include:

• Gaining Broad Perspectives on Leadership
• Is Leading Different than Managing?
• How Do Leaders Lead?
• General Advice and Resources

The Association of Community Cancer Centers Cancer Program Guidelines have been established to assist cancer programs that want to develop and/or maintain a comprehensive interdisciplinary program that meets the needs of cancer patients and their families.

The guidelines were developed to reflect the optimal components for a cancer program.

Chapters include:

• Institutional and Programmatic Resources
• Cancer Committee
• Cancer Data Management and Registry Operations
• Clinical Management and Supportive Care Services
• Clinical Research
• Community Outreach
• Professional Education and Staff Support
• Quality Improvement

The Free Management Library provides easy-to-access, clutter-free, comprehensive resources regarding the leadership and management of yourself, other individuals, groups and organizations.

The Introduction to Management topic helps the reader accomplish broad understanding of management (including traditional and emerging views), and the areas of knowledge and skills required to carry out the major functions of management.

Available resources reflect that  the term "management" refers to the activities (and often the group of people) involved in the four general functions: planning, organizing, leading and coordinating of resources; four functions that recur throughout organizations and are highly integrated.

Sections of the topic include:

• Gaining a Broad Understanding of Management
• Managing Yourself
• Basic Skills
• Major Functions
• General Advice and Resources

An Australian government site that contains key information about Australian professional skills and competencies development activities and links to a range of additional program, professional development, resource and research sites.

The site contains a portal of resources to assist in the development of general and professional skills including literacy, workplace and health and safety  skills.

The Free Management Library provides easy-to-access, clutter-free, comprehensive resources regarding the leadership and management of yourself, other individuals, groups and organizations.

The Basic Overview of Supervision topic covers several interpretations of the term "supervision", but predominantly focuses on typical supervision as the activity carried out by supervisors to oversee the productivity and progress of employees who report directly to the supervisors.

Sections of the topic include:

• Gaining a Broad Understanding of Supervision
• What Do Supervisors Do?
• General Advice

This information and suite of resources was developed by EdCaN project to serve as an introduction to the assessment of the attributes and capabilities that comprise specialist cancer nursing practice as outlined in A National Professional Development Framework for Cancer Nursing.

Included is an overview of the following theoretical concepts:

• Definitions of assessment as they apply to learning contexts and professional competence.
• Issues in assessing performance i.e.
• Reliability and validity in assessment
• Judgements in assessment
• Norm and criterion referenced assessments
• Assessment scoring and reporting approaches
• Contemporary trends in learning and assessment.

A full copy of An Overview of Assessment can be downloaded here (PDF, 349kb).

Fact sheets are available that explore the reliability and validity issues of a variety of assessment methods. 

The fact sheets are intended to guide educators in the use of these assessment methods as they apply the EdCaN learning resources. Assessment fact sheets have been developed for:

• written examinations (PDF, 274kb)
• constructed response assessments (essays) (PDF, 222kb)
• portfolios   (PDF, 155kb)
• performance assessment using competency assessment tools (PDF, 222kb).

In June 2000, Mentoring Australia, the national association for mentors and mentoring programs, convened a representative group of mentoring practitioners, all of whom had significant experience in the development and management of mentoring programs. The aim of the meeting was to develop a set of principles which would guide the development, management and funding of quality mentoring programs in Australia and enhance the rigour of mentoring programs by setting standards for responsible mentoring.

The Quality Checklist for Mentoring Programs document that was developed outlines a core set of principles which are recommended for use in establishing and managing effective mentoring programs and is designed for use by mentors, managers, and government and other funding agencies.

A web-based article discussing the importance of professional supervision for counsellors, including benefits for self-care.

A related article of article is: Feedback in Supervision

CETI has released The Superguide: a handbook for supervising doctors in training, a short and practical guide designed to help senior medical staff supervise junior doctors.

It gives tips based on the published evidence of what makes good supervision and the knowledge of many experienced supervisors in NSW.

Other resources supporting supervisors developed by CETI/IMET include:

• Assessing prevocational trainees
• Australian Curriculum Framework for Junior Doctors
• Trainee in difficulty: a handbook for Directors of Prevocational Education and Training