Background
Today’s patients have a lot of preliminary knowledge and consider themselves to be discerning customers. They expect their physician or therapist to be a communicatively competent counselor who treats them as his/her equal.
Objective
This study assesses the significance of the patient’s altered role perception for manual medicine/therapy training and continued education, and its consequences for demands on teachers. Furthermore, recommendations for teacher qualifications are provided.
Materials and methods
Evaluation of studies, discussion of basic research, and derivation of practical recommendations.
Results
The importance of the quality of the physician–patient interaction for patient satisfaction has increased significantly and is nowadays a serious competitive factor. This can be of lasting benefit to colleagues working in manual medicine/therapy. However, professionalization of communication with the patient as a customer is a prerequisite. To enable this, the appropriate attitude to the topic as well as the necessary competence must be imparted in manual medicine training and continued education. Successful teaching of these key competencies requires a change in teachers’ self-perception—from an expert in techniques to designer of holistic learning processes on a professional and personal level.
Conclusion
Promotion of personal key competencies has a potential competitive advantage for the Deutsche Gesellschaft Manuelle Medizin (German Society of Manual Medicine) and its members. In order to benefit from this advantage, compulsory incorporation of the corresponding qualifications in training and continued education curricula is imperative, as is systematic personal development for teachers with a focus on development of personal and methodologic competencies.