Goals of care conversation teaching in residency – a cross-sectional survey of postgraduate program directors

BACKGROUND: Residents are commonly involved in establishing goals of care for hospitalized patients. While education can improve the quality of these conversations, whether and how postgraduate training programs integrate such teaching into their curricula is not well established. The objective of this study was to characterize perceptions of current teaching and assessment of goals of care conversations, and program director interest in associated curricular integration. METHODS: An electronic survey was sent to all postgraduate program directors at the University of Calgary. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative comments were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: The survey response rate was 34% (22/64). Formal goals of care conversation teaching is incorporated into 63% of responding programs, and most commonly involves lectures. Informal teaching occurs in 86% of programs, involving discussion, direct observation and role modeling in the clinical setting. Seventy-three percent of programs assess goals of care conversation skills, mostly in the clinical setting through feedback. Program directors believe that over two-thirds of clinical faculty are prepared to teach goals of care conversations, and are interested in resources to teach and assess goals of care conversations. Themes that emerged include 1) general perceptions, 2) need for teaching, 3) ideas for teaching, and 4) assessment of goals of care conversations. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of residency training programs at the University of Calgary incorporate some goals of care conversation teaching and assessment into their curricula. Program directors are interested in resources to improve teaching and assessment of goals of care conversations. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0839-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.