rationale of the plan
Last reviewed 01/2018
The simple five-point plan follows the sequence of events that take place in everyday clinical practice. Within the plan, each task is expanded into a framework for identifying the individual skills of the consultation.
Doctors and patients tend to carry out the four tasks of initiating the session, gathering information, giving information and closing the session roughly in sequence while relationship-building is performed continuously during the other tasks.
The tasks make intuitive sense, are easy to keep in mind and provide a basis for studying doctor-patient interactions and communication skills.