How have you improved your serious illness conversation skills over the course of your career?

3 Answers

Mednet Member

Hospital Medicine · Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

I surely hope that my communication skills have improved over the course of my career (in the same way that being a doctor has improved). However, improvement as a clinician doesn't just happen. One has to be intentional about it. Things that will help:

Take a course. VitalTalk runs a number of edu...

Mednet Member

General Internal Medicine · University of Colorado

I agree with Dr. @Dr. First Last. In addition to the resources he mentioned, I think CAPC (Center to Advance Palliative Care) has good courses to help improve communication skills. Discussion guides/tools like SPIKES (a framework for the conversation) and NURSE (a framework for responding to emotion...

Mednet Member

General Internal Medicine · Northwell Health

My serious illness communication skills have improved over the decades, starting with formal training and feedback through Ariadne Labs, VitalTalk, and CAPC tools. That foundation has to be there first, and I assume it is a given for anything else to work.

More recently, as I look back on my career,...