摘要："Introduction: Good communication skills are a core competency for all health professionals. Any formal training on communication is in not given to students in the present cur-riculum. Hence the study was con-ducted to assess existing level of communication skills and student perceived communication barriers among third year medical students. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted in the field practice area of a medical college for 2 months among a convenient sample of 40 medical students. The existing levels of communication skills of students were assessed us-ing Kalamazoo Essential elements check list and communication bar-riers as perceived the student were obtained using a pretested ques-tionnaire. Results: The communication skills were very good in 50% of students, 20% excellent and 30% were having poor to average skills. Majority of the students reported lack of famili-arity with place and person as a barrier [78.3% males, 58.8% fe-males] followed by perceived inter-personal barriers like age difference, socioeconomic class difference. Conclusion: The present study re-vealed that most of the students have very good level of communica-tion skills, but still 30% were falling in poor to average levels. All stu-dents perceived one or the other bar-riers for communication but more so with familiarity with place and person. Formal training of students on communication skills in curricu-lum is necessary to overcome vari-ous barriers and enable them to communicate effectively. "
关键词：Communication skills; Barriers; Medical students; Health Education
