Physicians have always known that to provide competent care, it is necessary to establish effective communication with the patient. But medical students haven’t always been taught how to communicate effectively, and even when they have, there hasn’t been a clear and consistent model for them to use throughout their training.

Until now.

Beginning this fall, first-year UI medical students will learn how to conduct medical interviews based on the Calgary-Cambridge model, a method designed to integrate the structure and interview skills students need to become effective clinicians. And to help kick off the initiative, Jonathan Silverman, the British physician who helped develop the model, visited the UI Carver College of Medicine in May. Silverman met with course directors, simulated-patient instructors and other medical educators to introduce the model and share his insights concerning how to teach the medical interview. (more…)

An opportunity to study abroad had a big influence on Gerry Wickham—it brought him to the United States.

Wickham, a native of Wexford, Ireland, joined OSAC in May as curriculum coordinator with the McCowen learning community. His journey to the UI began with a year at Dominican University in Chicago, where he met his future wife and Burlington, Iowa, native Heather Hermann. After finishing his studies at the University of Ulster’s Belfast, Northern Ireland, campus, where he earned a bachelor’s in health psychology and management and a diploma in area studies in 1999, Wickham came to Iowa to begin graduate school and establish a family. (more…)

Jean Lantz, the UI Carver College of Medicine’s registrar and director of student programs and records, is leaving the UI to become assistant dean for student affairs at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago. Her friends and colleagues in the College and across campus gathered to say goodbye and wish her well at an indoor picnic hosted by OSAC June 10. (more…)