Feasibility of a brief workshop on palliative care communication skills for medical interns

This report describes a novel 3-hour workshop on delivering bad news and discussing end-of-life goals of care for internal medicine interns, and its effect on the interns' attitudes, knowledge, and confidence in discussing these topics with patients.

Interns participated in a 3-hour workshop involving role-playing, focused on teaching core knowledge, skills, and attitudes associated with delivering bad news and discussing goals of care at the end of life.

One to 3 weeks before and after the workshop, participants completed a written questionnaire that included 54 knowledge questions, 6 questions eliciting their perceived level of confidence, and 11 questions about attitudes toward delivering bad news or discussing goals of care. Immediately after the workshop, interns answered questions rating their satisfaction with the workshop.

Of 43 interns who took the pretest, 29 completed the posttest. There was a high degree of satisfaction with the workshop. Mean knowledge scores increased by 4 points (from 41.4 to 45.4, p < 0.001). The percentage of interns who expressed confidence increased. There was no change in interns' attitudes.