The University of Washington School of Medicine and its Department of Family Medicine in partnership with the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations is working with nine medical schools to participate in a three-year nationwide “learning community”. We are disseminating and studying an innovative educational program for teaching and learning medical communication. Descriptive documents can be downloaded from the left side of this this page.

Paired Observation: Two doctors observing and talking with a patient.

I took this clerkship because I believed what patients and doctors alike have told me - other than your knowledge base, how you relate to patients is fundamentally the most important part of medicine - but no one ever teaches you how to do that. I saw doctors who were really good at it, but it was difficult to pinpoint exactly why or how they do what they do. The clerkship was recommended to me by the pair who took it last year as the best thing they did in allof medical school, and I have to say I agree. I feel like I compressed years of experience by trial and error of how to communicate and negotiate with patients into one month, and as a result have a tremendous jumpstart on these skills as I will be entering my residency."

~ Former POVE student