How Praxis Works: AI-Powered Communication Skills Training for Medical Education
Clinical communication is fundamental to medical education, yet remains one of its most difficult competencies to teach at scale. Traditional approaches rely on simulated patients (actors) or peer role-play, both of which can be expensive, difficult to schedule, and impossible to repeat on demand. Trainees often get limited opportunities to practise, and feedback can be inconsistent.
Praxis is a communication skills training platform built by Augmented Healthcare that gives medical students a safe, repeatable environment to practise clinical consultations with AI-powered simulated patients. Every consultation is followed by structured AI feedback, self-reflection, and goal setting — creating a complete learning cycle that trainees can repeat as often as they need.
The Learning Cycle
Praxis is built around a continuous improvement loop. Trainees don't just practise, they build evidence of their development over time.
The cycle works like this:
- Practise: Select a clinical scenario and have a voice-based consultation with a simulated patient
- Review: Receive a full transcript and detailed AI-generated feedback, scored across structured audit categories
- Reflect: Use guided reflection prompts based on the Pendleton feedback model to identify strengths and areas for development
- Improve: Set SMART learning goals and export a comprehensive report for their professional portfolio
Each time a trainee completes this cycle, they build a richer picture of their progress. Educators can see how learners develop across multiple consultations, and trainees take ownership of their learning journey.
The trainee dashboard provides an overview of the learning journey, including recent consultations, scores, and progress tracking.
Realistic Clinical Scenarios
Every consultation starts with a clinical scenario. Praxis offers two ways to access scenarios:
- Pre-built scenarios created by educators, covering common clinical situations such as history taking, breaking bad news, and managing difficult conversations
- AI-generated scenarios tailored to specific learning needs — trainees can request a custom scenario and the platform generates a realistic clinical situation on demand
Each scenario includes a patient briefing, clinical context, and defined learning objectives. Educators maintain full control over the scenario library, and trainees can browse, filter, and select scenarios that match their development goals.
Trainees browse and select from a library of clinical scenarios, each with defined learning objectives and patient context.
Voice-Based Consultations with a Simulated Patient
When a trainee starts a consultation, they interact with a simulated patient through natural voice conversation. There are no scripts, menus, or multiple-choice options. The trainee speaks as they would in a real clinical encounter, and the simulated patient responds naturally.
The simulated patient is powered by Augmented Healthcare's consultation understanding engine, which models realistic patient behaviour including emotional responses, varying levels of health literacy, and clinically accurate symptom presentation. Trainees practise the full range of communication skills: building rapport, gathering information, explaining diagnoses, and shared decision-making.
Before starting, trainees review the scenario briefing and set up their microphone for the voice-based consultation.
Detailed AI Feedback and Scoring
After each consultation, Praxis generates a comprehensive review. The review includes:
- A full transcript of the consultation, allowing trainees to revisit exactly what was said
- Structured scoring across audit categories such as communication skills, clinical reasoning, and patient-centredness
- Detailed feedback with specific observations, improvement suggestions, and references to moments in the transcript
The feedback is transparent and explainable. Trainees can see exactly why they received each score and what specific actions would improve their performance. This isn't a black-box assessment; every suggestion is grounded in evidence from the consultation itself.
AI-generated feedback is structured by audit category, with specific observations and actionable suggestions for improvement.
Structured Reflection and Portfolio Building
The Reflection tab encourages trainees to move beyond passive feedback consumption into active learning. Using prompts based on the Pendleton feedback model, trainees record:
- What went well in the consultation
- What could have been done differently
- What they would change next time
Trainees then set SMART learning goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives that give their development clear direction.
The Export PDF feature generates a comprehensive consultation report that includes the transcript, AI feedback, scores, and reflection. This is designed for professional portfolios and supervisor review, giving trainees tangible evidence of their communication skills development.
Structured reflection using the Pendleton feedback model helps trainees identify strengths and areas for development.
Personalised Learning Resources (In Development)
Alongside consultation practice, Praxis provides structured learning modules that help trainees build foundational communication skills. Topics include communication foundations, history taking, and breaking bad news. Trainees can work through modules at their own pace and track their progress, complementing the hands-on practice they get through consultations.
Who Benefits
Medical educators gain a scalable training tool that supplements existing teaching. Scenarios can be tailored to curriculum objectives, and student progress is visible through structured feedback and reflection evidence.
Trainees get unlimited opportunities to practise in a safe environment where mistakes are learning opportunities, not consequences. They build a portfolio of evidence demonstrating their development over time.
Training programmes and institutions benefit from consistent, evidence-based assessment of communication competency - with a clear audit trail from practice through to reflection and goal setting.
Learn More
Praxis is built by Augmented Healthcare, a clinical consultation understanding infrastructure company. If you'd like to take part in the Praxis Beta trial and help us develop our platform further, get in touch at earlyaccess@augmented.healthcare
