Effective communication in health care benefits patients. Medical and veterinary schools not only have a responsibility to teach communication skills, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Council on Education (COE) requires that communication be taught in all accredited colleges of veterinary medicine. However, the best strategy for designing a communications curriculum is unclear. The Calgary-Cambridge Guide (CCG) is one of many models developed in human medicine as an evidence-based approach to structuring the clinical consultation through 71 communication skills. The model has been revised by Radford et al. (2006) for use in veterinary curricula; however, the best approach for veterinary educators to teach communication remains to be determined. This qualitative study investigated if one adaptation of the CCG currently taught at Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine (MWU CVM) fulfills client expectations of what constitutes clinically effective communication. Two focus groups (cat owners and dog owners) were conducted with a total of 13 participants to identify common themes in veterinary communication. Participants compared communication skills they valued to those taught by MWU CVM. The results indicated that while the CCG skills that MWU CVM adopted are applicable to cat and dog owners, they are not comprehensive. Participants expressed the need to expand the skillset to include compassionate transparency and unconditional positive regard. Participants also expressed different communication needs that were attributed to the species of companion animal owned.
Keywords: client perspective; communication skills; curriculum; focus group study; foundational and core communication skills; qualitative research; veterinary education.