Experiences of Simulated Phone Death Notification

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Communication Skills Training
• Physician Training

Background:

• Physicians require specific training for difficult skills like delivering death notifications.
• Literature lacks detailed descriptions of such essential communication training.
• A standardized patient encounter was developed to address this gap for medical students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a formative, standardized patient encounter for telephone death notification training.
• To assess fourth-year medical students' qualitative perspectives on the training, focusing on emotional safety and skill acquisition.

Main Methods:

• A telephone death notification case was integrated into a fourth-year communication skills workshop.
• Students received preparatory didactic lessons, formative peer feedback, and faculty-led debriefs.
• Qualitative analysis of audio-recorded debriefings and post-session surveys from 88 medical students was conducted.

Main Results:

• Three themes emerged: communication challenges, emotional responses, and appreciation for the training.
• Students identified challenges in language, silence, distance, and phone-based communication.
• Despite the intensity, students appreciated the realistic nature and felt safe and supported.

Conclusions:

• Telephone death notification training is a valuable, realistic, and emotionally safe educational experience.
• Medical students felt appropriately challenged and adequately supported during the training.
• This type of training should be incorporated into formative communication skills curricula.