Communication Skills for Future Doctors and Health Professionals: Developing Student Personas for an Interdisciplinary Digital Course on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Health Communication

Wide segments of the population express interest in what they believe are alternatives to evidence-based therapies, leading to increasing challenges in the care provided by doctors and other professionals such as nutritionists, pharmacists, and psychologists. Regarding the field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), there is a multitude of digital health information that patients base their opinions on. Education confronts the dual challenge of updating teaching concepts to keep pace with progressing digitalization and equipping students to manage digital health information in future patient interactions. In our project, we transfer the concept of medical case conferences into the digital space and develop an interdisciplinary and collaborative blended-learning course with a unique method of competence impartation. We report on the construction of a set of student personas based on the data of the target group gathered in three iterations. These personas are available for further use in the adaption of the blended-learning course that equip future health professionals with the knowledge to advocate evidence-based practices within interdisciplinary teams and communicate effectively with patients about CAM.