Patient-centred practice
On this page
In each patient interaction, medical students are expected to communicate ethically, respect patient dignity and involve patients in their care whilst upholding professional standards.
Effective patient interaction builds trust and improves diagnosis and treatment.
Patient interaction helps students apply medical knowledge in real cases.
Contact with real patients strengthens clinical reasoning and decision making.
Engaging with patients challenges students while also teaching empathy and professionalism.
Doctors must model effective patient communication for medical students.
Patient involvement in education is critical for medical training. Students cannot become good doctors without learning to interact effectively with a wide range of people of different backgrounds and experiences.
You’ll find guidance for doctors on the topic of patient interactions in the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Communicate clearly – Use simple, jargon-free language, ensuring patients understand their condition, treatment options and next steps.
- Show empathy and respect – Listen actively, acknowledge concerns and treat all patients with dignity, regardless of background or circumstances.
- Encourage shared decision-making – Support patients in making informed choices, providing balanced information about risks and benefits.
- Adapt to individual needs – Recognise cultural, language and disability-related barriers, making reasonable adjustments to facilitate understanding.
- Maintain professional boundaries – Be approachable but uphold clear boundaries, ensuring relationships remain ethical and focused on patient care.
The Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet states that, when interacting with patients, students must:
- Communicate clearly – Speak with respect, use plain language and check that patients understand to support informed decisions.
- Maintain professionalism – Always introduce yourself as a student, seek patient consent and recognise your role limitations.
- Show compassion – Treat every patient with kindness, dignity and empathy, being mindful of their vulnerability.
Some scenarios feature a patient interaction – this happens in any scenario where the patient plays an active and central role, rather than being a background character.
The principles of good ethical and professional behaviour in this area are the same for doctors and medical students:
- Patients should be treated politely and with consideration.
- They must be treated as individuals.
- All patients should be treated fairly, regardless of their life choices and beliefs.
- Upholding their confidentiality is of the utmost importance.
Walkthrough question
Appropriateness - Patient interaction
Let’s look at a regular Appropriateness set featuring a patient interaction.
Doctors and medical students will often interact with a patient’s relatives, which requires clear and compassionate communication while also respecting confidentiality and ethical guidelines.
It’s natural for relatives to ask questions and share emotions openly, often at what is a difficult time for their family member.
At the same time, the clinical team must balance information sharing with patient confidentiality.
Clear communication with relatives will help to improve patient understanding, which can improve patient care.
When speaking with relatives, medical students must learn to explain complex information simply and empathetically.
Relative interactions help medical students understand patient support systems, which can be critical to recovery and longer-term health.
Clear communication with relatives will help to improve patient understanding, which can improve patient care.
When speaking with relatives, medical students must learn to explain complex information simply and empathetically.
Relative interactions help medical students understand patient support systems, which can be critical to recovery and longer-term health.
You’ll find guidance for doctors on the topic of relative interactions in the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Communicate with empathy – Listen to relatives’ concerns, provide clear explanations and show compassion, especially in difficult situations.
- Respect patient confidentiality – Only share information with relatives if the patient has given consent, unless disclosure is legally required or in the patient’s best interests.
- Manage expectations – Be honest based on a patient’s condition, prognosis and treatment options even when you cannot disclose specifics, taking care to avoid false reassurance or unnecessary distress.
- Handle distress professionally – Stay calm and supportive when dealing with emotional, angry or grieving relatives, ensuring they feel heard and respected.
- Seek support when needed – Involve senior colleagues, patient liaison teams or support services when complex family dynamics or difficult conversations arise.
Achieving Good Medical Practice provides some useful guidance to students in regards to interacting with the relatives of patients:
- Be polite and considerate – Treat family members with respect, understanding their role in the patient’s care.
- Respect confidentiality – Only share patient information with family if explicit consent has been given.
- Offer support, not advice – Listen with empathy, acknowledge concerns, but defer clinical decisions to supervisors.
In addition to patient interactions, some scenarios will feature an interaction between a doctor or medical student and a patient’s relative.
Relatives of someone being cared for can often be:
- Emotional due to the difficult and worrying circumstances of their loved one.
- Frustrated at what they perceive to be a lack of information or some other problem related to the care their loved one is receiving.
- Motivated by concern for a loved one when making an awkward or unethical request, such as asking that a piece of bad news is not conveyed to the patient.
Relatives of patients must always be approached and communicated with in a professional and empathetic manner.
Question walkthrough
Walkthrough - Appropriateness - Relative interaction
Let’s look at a regular Appropriateness set featuring a relative interaction.
Doctors and medical students must work within a patient’s consent, which means ensuring that patients make voluntary, informed decisions about their care based on clear, honest information.
Consent must be voluntary, informed and given by a competent individual.
Medical students may ask for consent before simple procedures like reading blood pressure or taking bloods, but should not take written consent as this is a duty of a doctor.
To help patients to give consent, medical students must learn to communicate clearly and empathetically. Doctors can support medical students with ethical consent discussions and preparing students for legal and professional challenges that may arise in clinical settings.
Proper consent builds patient trust and supports shared decision making.
You’ll find guidance for doctors on the topic of consent in the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Obtain informed consent – Ensure patients understand the risks, benefits and alternatives before proceeding with any treatment or procedure.
- Respect patient autonomy – Support patients in making their own healthcare decisions, even if their choices differ from your recommendations.
- Assess capacity when necessary – Determine if a patient has the mental capacity to consent and follow legal frameworks if they lack capacity.
- Avoid assumptions – Do not assume consent based on a patient’s past decisions or their engagement with care; always confirm before proceeding.
- Document consent discussions – Record key details of consent conversations, including the information provided and the patient’s decision.
In relation to consent, the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet states that students must:
- Always identify yourself as a student – Patients must know you are a medical student and have the right to decline your involvement in their care.
- Obtain explicit consent – Before conducting examinations or procedures, ensure the patient has given clear, informed consent under supervision.
- Know your limits – You must not take written consent for procedures – this must be done by a qualified healthcare professional.
- Respect patient decisions – If a patient refuses your involvement, respect their choice and do not attempt to persuade them otherwise.
Some scenarios have key issues related to consent.
Patients must give their explicit consent to the medical team before undergoing treatment.
Scenarios that feature ethical issues related to consent can involve:
- Patients who cannot communicate in English.
- Patients who are very young children.
- Patients with beliefs that affect the treatment plans they agree to.
A patient’s right to withhold consent is inalienable and must always be respected.
Walkthrough question
Importance - Consent
Let’s look at an Importance set featuring a key issue related to consent.
Everyone involved in a patient’s care – including doctors and medical students – must ensure confidentiality. This means that they must protect patient information in order to maintain trust and meet ethical standards and legal obligations.
Patients must be able to trust the medical team will keep their personal information with the utmost confidentiality or otherwise, public confidence in the profession would be compromised.
Doctors and medical students must keep patient information private unless the patient gives consent for it to be shared or disclosed.
Confidentiality encourages patients to share sensitive health details that could improve treatment.
Medical students must learn to handle patient data responsibly. This includes understanding when patient data can be shared ethically.
Any confidentiality breach could damage trust and result in legal consequences. When medical students are involved in patient care, they must follow best practices to safeguard confidentiality.
You’ll find guidance for doctors on the topic of confidentiality in the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Protect patient information – Keep all patient details secure and confidential, sharing only when necessary for care or for legal or public interest reasons.
- Avoid improper disclosure – Never discuss patient cases in public places, on social media or with those not involved in care, even if details are anonymised.
- Follow legal and ethical guidelines – Ensure compliance with data protection laws and professional standards, including when storing, transferring or disposing of records.
- Gain consent when possible – Obtain patient consent before sharing identifiable information, unless required by law or necessary to prevent serious harm.
- Report breaches appropriately – Act if confidentiality is compromised, addressing issues promptly and following professional or workplace reporting protocols.
Here’s some confidentiality guidance for students from the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Protect patient information – Never share identifiable patient details outside the healthcare team, including in public places, on social media or in academic work.
- Follow institutional policies – Adhere to your medical school and placement provider’s rules on data protection and secure storage of patient records.
- Be cautious in conversations – Always check what information a patient has consented to share with family or carers before discussing their health.
- Ask if unsure – If you are uncertain about whether to disclose patient information, seek guidance from your supervisor rather than making an independent decision.
Some scenarios feature key issues related to the principle of patient confidentiality.
Confidentiality is one of the most important principles that a doctor or medical student is expected to uphold.
Breaches are serious and patients have a right to be informed about them.
Doctors and medical students should assume confidentiality applies unless explicitly told otherwise.
Some confidentiality sets feature deciders posting information on social media.
Social media should always be used by doctors and medical students with the utmost discretion.
Breaches of confidentiality in the Situational section can sometimes be subtle, so remember that confidentiality covers, among other things:
- Patient names, contact details and other personal data.
- Identifiable possessions in the background of photographs.
- Public posts about very rare conditions, even if the patient isn’t named.
Confidentiality breaches can take place in any public setting including:
- The hospital canteen.
- On public transport.
- A student essay, unless the content is anonymised.
- In a piece of journalism or on a podcast.
When breaches occur, they must be stemmed as directly and locally as possible.
Some scenarios will feature a relative or stranger arriving at a clinical setting and asking for information about a patient. Unless the patient has given consent for information to be shared, you must protect the patient’s confidentiality.
Anything that concerns removing patient data from one place to another also falls under this category. You must always safeguard patient information, and doctors and medical students must take care to follow security protocols – such as not sharing login details or passwords – when accessing it.
Walkthrough question
Importance - Confidentiality
Let’s look at an Importance set featuring a key issue related to confidentiality.
Doctors and medical students must uphold patient dignity and safety, which means respecting a patient’s autonomy, privacy and wellbeing whilst at the same time ensuring the patient’s care is safe and ethical.
This principle is fundamental to the medical profession and central to legal obligations for doctors in the UK, Australia and other countries.
Medical students must learn to defend privacy, seek consent and be sensitive to cultural differences.
Treating patients with respect will build trust and improve care. It is essential to listen to patients and see each patient as an individual.
Following safety protocols at all times will help to prevent errors and protect patients.
You’ll find guidance for doctors on the issue of patient dignity and safety in the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet:
- Act when safety is compromised – Raise concerns if patient dignity, safety or care standards are at risk, whether due to colleague misconduct, poor working conditions or system failures.
- Respect patient dignity – Treat all patients fairly, without discrimination and ensure their privacy, autonomy and personal beliefs are always upheld.
- Be open and honest when things go wrong – Acknowledge mistakes, apologise and explain fully to patients if they experience harm or distress, while ensuring lessons are learned to prevent future errors.
- Safeguard vulnerable patients – Identify and report concerns about abuse, neglect or risk of harm, and take appropriate action to ensure safeguarding measures are in place.
- Promote a culture of safety – Encourage open discussions about safety concerns, support colleagues in raising issues and contribute to incident reporting and investigation processes.
On the topic of upholding patient dignity and safety, the Achieving Good Medical Practice booklet states that students must:
- Treat patients with respect – Always recognise and uphold a patient’s dignity, treating them as individuals whilst honouring their rights and preferences.
- Seek consent before involvement – Ensure patients are aware you are a medical student and obtain their consent before participating in their care.
- Maintain patient confidentiality – Handle patient information responsibly, only sharing it when appropriate and in line with ethical guidelines.
- Act when safety is at risk – If you notice a patient’s dignity or safety is compromised, raise concerns promptly with a supervisor or through appropriate channels.
Some scenarios have key issues related to patient dignity and safety.
Doctors and students must view patients as individuals with a complex set of needs, both emotional and physical, and not just a set of symptoms to be treated and sent home.
Patients have a right to be safe and to have their dignity upheld while receiving care.
Some of the problems you might encounter in scenarios of this kind involve:
- Patients disturbed by noise while convalescing.
- Faulty equipment, e.g. for heating or lighting, which is negatively impacting a patient’s wellbeing.
- Patients who could be at risk of harm from a visitor.
Walkthrough question
Importance - Patient dignity and safety
Let’s look at an Importance set featuring a key issue related to patient dignity and safety.