Efficacy of Half-Day Workshops for Internal Medicine Interns in Educating Breaking-Bad-News Discussions

Background: Adequate end-of-life (EOL) care/breaking-bad-news (BBN) discussions with patients are becoming increasingly essential to adequate patient care. Purpose: Whether a half-day workshop would lead to improved confidence in EOL/BBN care discussions for internal medicine interns. Methods: Internal medicine interns (n = 43) were assigned to participate in a half-day workshop at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. The workshop involved two standardized patient (SP) interactions involving delivering news of a terminal illness/initiating goals of care discussion with the intervention of SP feedback, a didactic and lecture on proper EOL/BBN discussion. Voluntary anonymous surveys before and after the workshop were utilized to assess impact. Results: A majority of interns felt more comfortable with leading EOL care/BBN discussions after the workshop and had a positive experience. Conclusions: A half-day curriculum is efficacious in educating EOL/BBN communication to internal medicine interns, but should be further assessed in a larger more standardized study involving an objective assessment.