University of Connecticut School of Medicine

Purpose: To improve students’ communication skills in taking a history and negotiating a treatment plan with a patient who is in pain.  

Objectives: 1) To develop and implement a curriculum on pain assessment and management for 1st and 3rd year medical students. 2) To provide faculty development for preceptors who teach the students 3) To measure the current skills of the students and impact of the curriculum on those skills in a standardized patient assessment.

Educational Methods: Educational objectives for assessment and management of pain, didactics on pain and its management, videoclips with facilitators manuals, standardized patient cases for teaching and evaluation of objectives. 

Applications: 1st year course: “Principles of Clinical Medicine” session on pain assessment, 3rd year forum on pain management negotiation, faculty development workshops for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year faculty.