Table 2 contains the subscale scores and their descriptive statistics. When the items are summed into subscales or the total scales, there are no differences in the total MAAS Global scores between the two specialties. The lack of differences in the total scores between the two specialties is due to the cancelling effects of items 9, 13 and 15 in Table 1. Nor are there are differences in the communication skills for each separate phase and general communication skills. On medical aspects, however, general surgery outperformed general practice (3.25 versus 3.01, p < 0.05; this contains the 2 items where GS outperformed GP).