Teaching residents how to break bad news: piloting a resident-led curriculum and feedback task force as a proof-of-concept study

Sleiman, Joseph; Savage, David J.; Switzer, Benjamin; Colbert, Colleen Y.; Chevalier, Cory; Neuendorf, Kathleen; Harris, David

doi:10.1136/bmjstel-2021-000897

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The challenge lies in the design, implementation, and assessment of a comprehensive curriculum at the resident level. The majority of existing curricula are single sessions 10–16 or focus on narrow, yet important, situations such as breaking bad news 11,12,14,17–22 or patient hand-offs. 23,24 We did identify a few examples of comprehensive communication curricula for residents and fellows, one being an 18 months cycle, 25 one spanning 3 years, 26 and one being for critical care medicine fellows.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…27 The majority of programs are led by faculty physicians, non-physician communication experts, or professors in education, 12,13,15,[25][26][27][28][29] posing feasibility challenges for many programs. We did identify an internal medicine resident-led single session workshop on breaking bad news that successfully increased confidence in breaking bad news, 14 as well as resident-led curricula for non-communication topics. [30][31][32][33][34] Resident-led strategies have recently become a priority of graduate medical education as a method to foster meaning and joy in trainee work.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An innovative approach to comprehensive communication skills training for residents: A resident-led communication curriculum

Chang,

Suri,

Huang

et al. 2023

Journal of Investigative Medicine

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Innovations to enhance residency training in interpersonal and communication skills are needed and a resident-led strategy has not been well-described. In this study, we explored a resident-led comprehensive communication skills curriculum for internal medicine residents. Residents and faculty prepared the curriculum as part of an ACGME Back to Bedside project and with “The Language of Caring Guide for Physicians.” Employing active learning techniques, three residents led forty-three internal medicine residents in seven one-hour sessions from 2019-2020. Using a 35-question survey, we assessed pre and post self-reported competence in: mindful practice, collaboration and teamwork, effective openings and closing, communicating with empathy, effective explanations, engaging patients and families as partners, and hard conversations. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was employed to explore differences in median scores after matching each person’s pretest and posttest score. The median score for aggregate communication and the scores for all seven competencies assessed improved from pre to post (p<0.05). This indicates that residents reported higher incidences of performing patient-centered communication skills after the curriculum compared to before. Using a 5-point Likert scale, 100% of participants agreed the program improved their communication skills and improved confidence in bedside patient-centered communications. A resident-led comprehensive communication skills curriculum for internal medicine residents was implemented showing improvement in skills over the course of the curriculum. The curriculum was well-accepted by post-survey evaluation and was feasible with motivated resident-leaders, use of an existing guide to communication, and reserved didactic time to implement the program.

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