Code Status Discussions: A Standardized Patient Workshop for Senior Medical Students

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Palliative Care
• Communication Skills Training

Background:

• Code status discussions (CSDs) are crucial for patient-centered care.
• Many residents lack formal training in conducting CSDs, impacting communication quality.
• Existing training programs often lack standardization, generalizability, and large-scale testing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel curriculum for training medical students in CSDs.
• To assess the impact of standardized patient (SP) simulations on student confidence.
• To determine the generalizability of the training across different medical specialties.

Main Methods:

• A 2-hour workshop training 192 fourth-year medical students in CSDs.
• Utilized standardized patients (SPs) for simulation-based learning.
• Administered pre- and post-workshop surveys to assess confidence levels.

Main Results:

• A statistically significant increase in student confidence was observed across all assessed domains post-workshop.
• The training successfully engaged a large, diverse cohort of medical students.
• High completion rates for pre- and post-workshop surveys indicate engagement.

Conclusions:

• The standardized patient-based workshop effectively enhanced medical students' confidence in conducting CSDs.
• This scalable curriculum offers a model for institutions seeking to improve CSD training.
• This represents a novel, large-scale, and generalizable approach to CSD education.