Nutrition clinicians connecting with patients and family members to reduce the risk of ethical dilemmas

Nutrition clinicians need to recognize the importance of establishing meaningful connections with their patients and family members. In this manuscript, we discuss skills for making these connections and possibly reducing the risk of nutrition-related ethical dilemmas. American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition leaders have stressed the importance of clinician-patient connections. Insights from Jonathan Rhoads, who was a developer of parenteral nutrition, indicated that availability and affability are important traits for nutrition clinicians, not just ability. These qualities reflect a patient-centered approach grounded in compassion, empathy, and effective communication. We present two examples of teaching tools designed to develop these skills in nutrition clinicians. (1) A nutrition clinician play performed at the ASPEN Clinical Nutrition Week 2015 that used spoken words and nonverbal communication to demonstrate approaches to connecting with a patient's family members. (2) A module developed for graduate nutrition students in 2025 that uses an artificial intelligence-generated role-play simulation to provide practice engaging in conversations with patients and caregivers involving crucial issues about the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.