Often the most difficult conversations in medicine are not between doctors and patients, but between doctors and surrogate decision-makers (i.e. surrogates): individuals, frequently family members or close friends, called upon to make medical decisions for critically ill, adult patients.  This is borne out of necessity, as nearly half of hospitalized adult patients cannot make their own medical decisions. As for critically ill patients, surrogates make 75% of decisions, including decisions about end-of-life and code status. Poor communication between surrogates and clinicians can exacerbate grief, anxiety and guilt for surrogates, and lead to moral distress and burnout for providers. There is evidence that empathic communication can reduce surrogate burden and caregiver burnout, while improving engagement, medical decision-making and the quality of patient care. This lecture educates participants about using interactive, experiential pedagogical methods to improve communication skills relevant to engaging surrogate decision-makers.

Objectives:

At the conclusion of this activity, the learner should be able to:

• Describe challenges in teaching/ assessing humanistic/ empathic communication skills
• Provide a brief overview of experiential learning
• Demonstrate how experiential learning opportunities can improve humanistic and empathic communication skills
• Inspire others to experiment with experiential learning