2025 Scholars' Research Symposium Abstract: Leadership Course in Team-Based Communication Skills for Medical Students.

Introduction: Healthcare has shifted toward team-based patient care to address the increasing complexities of patient care as studies have demonstrated that a team-based approach results in better outcomes and safer patient care. Medical students are future leaders of healthcare teams yet current medical school curricula does not include a leadership or team-based teaching component. The goal of this project was to design a pilot program to teach the fundamentals of leadership and communication skills as relevant to medical students.

Methods: To assess the aptitude and educational need of the target audience, a medical school-wide student survey was distributed to all the medical students. Course curriculum was subsequently developed to include an online didactic component and an in-person simulation component. The didactic activity taught fundamentals of communication, active listening, giving and receiving feedback. Participant knowledge was assessed upon completion of the didactic course (pre-activity) and after completion of the simulation component (post-activity) using a 10-question quiz. Participants were divided into groups, given specific scenarios and roles that explored these themes. Students were primarily in their pre-clinical years however, each group had one student who was completing clinical clerkships. Participants rotated through the three scenarios and had an opportunity to complete each role within their group. At the end of the session, feedback was given and participants completed a final survey and post-quiz. A paired t-test was used to analyze the participants' answers on each of these questions.

Results: The survey was deployed to all 280 medical students and 78 responses were obtained which demonstrated an interest in a leadership development course. Initial interest exceeded capacity. A total of 14 students completed the pilot course in its entirety, including the post-activity survey. Participant knowledge before and after the course was analyzed using a t-test which evaluated knowledge of the 4-part communication model, active listening skills, and fundaments of giving and receiving feedback. Each question in the 10-question survey was analyzed using a t-test with each question having its own p-value. There were no statistically significant differences between the results of the pre-activity quiz and the post-activity quiz.

Conclusion: Student interest in this course exceeded the expectations of the author, which strengthens the assertion that medical students would benefit from formal communication and leadership training as future leaders of the healthcare team. There was no statistically significant difference between the results of the pre-activity quiz and the post-activity quiz. This was likely due to several factors including small sample size, and the fact that the pre-activity quiz took place after completion of the didactic course. In the future, the pre-activity quiz should take place prior to the didactic course to better assess competencies. Verbal feedback of the course during the debrief session was largely positive. The next phase of this pilot course should focus on expanding the number of medical student participants and creating a diversity of simulation scenarios.