Breaking Bad News: Integrating the Spikes Model into Medical School Curriculum

Breaking bad news to patients is a daunting yet inevitable task for most physicians. When done poorly, physicians can cause further pain to the patients while creating great distress for themselves; therefore, it is important medical students learn effective and compassionate techniques. The SPIKES model was created as a guiding framework for providers to use when breaking bad news. The objective of this project was to create a sustainable method to integrate use of the SPIKES model for giving bad news to patients into the curriculum for the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (SSOM).

The changes to the curriculum occurred in three phases - one for each Pillar of the University of South Dakota SSOM's curriculum. The first session was a lecture format introducing and defining the SPIKES model for the first-year students. The second lesson was both didactic and interactive, as students were able to practice the SPIKES model through role-playing with colleagues. Prior to COVID, the final lesson was planned to be a standardized patient encounter for the graduating students; however, this lesson ended up in a virtual lecture format. A pre- and post-survey was given for each lesson to determine the usefulness of the SPIKES model in preparing students for handling these challenging conversations.

197 students completed the pre-test survey, and 157 students completed the post-test survey. Overall, a statistically significant improvement was found in students' self-reported confidence, preparedness, and comfort. When the data was broken down based upon year of training, not all cohorts had statistically significant improvement in all three categories.

The SPIKES model serves as a good framework for students to use and tailor to the specific patient encounters. It was evident these lessons greatly improved the student's confidence, comfort, and plan of action. The next step would be to study whether improvement is noted from a patient's perspective and what mode of instruction was most effective.