Evaluation of emergency medicine resident death notification skills by direct observation

Emergency physicians commonly perform death notifications. Physician training in death notification has been limited. Resident physicians are rarely evaluated in their performance of death notifications.

To evaluate death notification skills by direct observation of actual notifications performed by trained emergency medicine (EM) residents.

This was a prospective, observational study of EM resident death notification performance. EM residents received training and then were directly observed and evaluated by trained evaluators during actual death notifications in a 64,000-visit community teaching hospital emergency department.

There were 327 evaluations of 70 different EM residents. Overall performance evaluations were 55% excellent, 40% satisfactory, and 5% unsatisfactory. Third-year EM residents and female EM residents were more likely to be rated excellent.

Death notification is a skill that can be evaluated like other EM skills. Trained EM residents performed well in actual death notifications when directly observed and evaluated. Senior residents and female residents were more likely to be rated excellent.