Impact of early clinical exposure upon communication skills pertaining to undergraduate medical students as assessed on Kalamazoo scale

Objective: To assess the impact of early clinical exposure upon communication skills on Kalamazoo scale. Methodology: This quasi-experimental, multicenter study was conducted among 160 third year MBBS students of one each private and public medical college from March 2017 to January 2018. Communication skills of students were scored using Kalamazoo Checklist-Adapted (KEECC-A). Data were analyzed on SPSS version 23. Results: The disparity between both categories was significant (p < 0.001). The seventh element, providing closure included asking patient to summarize, acknowledge and close the interview. The ECE students performed very good to excellent 41 (51.3%) as compared to the Non-ECE students 3 (3.8%). The dissimilarity among categories remained statistically significant (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The Kalamazoo scale was well performed by the ECE group showing that early clinical exposure can improve communication skills of students and hence better physician-patient relationship.