A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of an Innovative Workshop to Teach Primary Palliative Care Communication Skills to Fourth-Year Medical Students

BackgroundPhysicians' unpreparedness to conduct conversations around serious illness creates a barrier to initiating effective goals of care conversations. Teaching primary palliative care communication skills in medical school is paramount to overcome this barrier.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative, immersive primary palliative care communication skills workshop for fourth-year medical students and to incorporate professional actors with teaching experience into the medical school curriculum.MethodsAn interactive, scenario-based, day-long workshop utilizing professional actors as faculty was developed and conducted multiple times annually for 4 years. Students completed online surveys before, immediately after, and 3-6 months after the workshop. Likert scales assessed student self-perceived comfort with skills learned and short response queries evaluated student experiences. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA repeated measures test were used. Qualitative data was double coded and thematically analyzed.Results226 students participated in the workshop; 100%. Responded to the pre-survey, 170 (75.2%) responded to the post-survey, and 133 (58.8%) responded to the post-3-6 months survey. The mean self-perceived comfort between the pre-survey and both post- and post-3-6 months surveys was statistically significant (<i>P</i> < 0.05) for all skills taught. Students reported integrating learned skills and found subjective success in their improved approaches to communication with patients.ConclusionAn innovative primary palliative care communication skills workshop using trained professional actors improved and maintained fourth-year medical students' self-perceived primary palliative care communication skills. Widespread education of primary palliative care communication skills to medical students with trained actors as faculty could improve physician-patient communication around goals of care.