Postgraduate - UnitPHC5013 - Advanced consulting skills for primary care practitioners

The aim of this unit is to assist clinicians, who are currently working as primary healthcare practitioners, to enhance and refine their consulting skills. It is particularly relevant for International medical practitioners who wish to improve their community based patient care. Cultural context will thus provide the background when discussing consultation styles, with students expected to gain knowledge in cultural literacy and competency. Strengthening and enhancing communication skills will also form a consistent theme throughout the unit. The unit will encourage students to draw on their own experience to critically appraise and evaluate clinical encounters using evidence based consultation modelling. They will be expected to analyse current theories underpinning the construct of a consultation, describing and exploring aspects of it that may result in suboptimal patient care or outcomes. This unit explores the unique dynamic that occurs in the exchange and interplay between clinician and patient, within a specific cultural context. In the process of doing so it guides students to a deeper layer of reflection of how the consultation process itself might impact on patient outcomes. The focus of the unit is on skills development to ensure health care practitioners retain and build on the knowledge they gain to both teach and practice more effective primary healthcare within a community.