Debate: Innovative Teaching to Enhance Critical Thinking and Communication Skills in Healthcare Professionals

Preparing students to be critical thinkers and effective communicators is essential in today’s complex health care environmen addition to sound psychomotor skills, future health effectively, not only to their patients, but to a wide range of constituents such policymakers and payers, as well as other healthcare professionals. The teaching method of debate will prepare students with such skills. Debates have the ability to reinforce and enhance knowledge in a topic area, to engage students in the learning process, to verify that students have the ability to analyze, incorporate, and apply the literature to various situations, to heighten organization and listening skills, and to boost confidence when challenged on issues by others. The purpose of this paper is to describe the utilization of structured classroom debates as a teaching strategy for critical thinking and enhancing professional communication skills. INTRODUCTION As the culture of health care continues to evolve, allied health professionals must stand ready to defend their profession and promote their practice. Hence, allied health educators are charged to not only give students the hands their patients, but also to prepare students to be responsible representatives of their chosen profession. typically excel at engaging students in communication and critical thinking as it relates to the patient/caregiver interaction; yet, with the health care arena broadening, students must be able to critically think and confidently communicate with other constituents (i.e. lobbyist, policymakers, other health advance their profession. Even though educators recognize the importance of the student’s ability to critically assess a clinical situation an convey that assessment, communication and critical analysis are often difficult to assess. can serve as an innovative teaching and learning tool in the educational process. involvement in the learning process, integration of previously taught material, development of problem patient/caregiver interaction, organization, and teamwork. whether students comprehend and/or are able to apply major concepts of the profession that might otherwise be difficult to assess (i.e. active listening, cultural competence, professionalism, ethics, critical thinking, etc.). Debates have been defined as an educational strategy that fosters clinical reasoning and thinking skills as well as heightens awareness of attitudes, values, and beliefs. debates in an educational environment over 2400 years ago in Athens, Greece. education in the 19th thru the early 20th century, yet lost its appeal until the 1980s as a teaching tool to develop critical thin logic, and communication skills.1,2,13,14,17 Vol. 9 o. 3 ISS 1540-580X Dawn Hall, BS, MPT, PhD and Health Science, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois