‘Non-technical skill’ is not a great term for the range of skills and behaviours we expect of our healthcare professionals. It also belies a not so subtle hierarchy of skills where ‘hard’, technical, ‘medical expertise’ are afforded primacy, sometimes to the detriment of our patient care. 

Our latest collaborative podcast with Advances in Simulation features an editorial - Words matter: towards a new lexicon for ‘nontechnical skills’ training by Paul Murphy, Debra Nestel and Gerry Gormley. 

In this podcast I was joined by Paul Murphy from Queens University Belfast, the lead author of the article, as well as Pamela Andreatta, who was part of a group who authored a similarly themed article in 2011. 

We discussed words, culture, drama, impression management and values in health professional education and simulation.  

vb