Interpersonal and Communication Skills

Residents demonstrate effective communication with other health care providers, patients, and patients’ families by:

• Second, third and fourth year residents present cases at in-house tumor boards and conferences under direct faculty supervision. Residents should be able to handle questions and comments in an increasingly independent fashion although the faculty pathologist must always ultimately give the final word.
• Interacting with clinicians, patients, and patients’ families during performance of immediate cytopathology evaluations and by providing support to clinicians and families during on-call assignments in an increasingly independent fashion. First and second year residents should only discuss results under direct faculty supervision, while third and fourth year residents should be able to discuss cases with decreasing levels of supervision.

Residents at all levels demonstrate their communication skills by presenting an Interesting Case Conference at the end of the rotation (see Medical Knowledge section).

Evaluation

• Rotation evaluation
• Global resident evaluation
• 360o evaluation