Residents and fellows at UMass Chan Medical School will have the chance to participate in a pilot program this spring geared toward developing communication skills and practicing difficult discussions with patients, thanks to funding provided by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.
The program, “Apology and Disclosure: Developing Competency for Patient Safety and Equity,” is led by Stacy E. Potts, MD, MEd, professor of family medicine & community health and senior associate dean for graduate medical education and clinical affairs; and Sunita Puri, MD, MS, associate professor of medicine and program director of the hospice and palliative medicine fellowship.
“The project is about building competence and confidence in our trainees in discussions of apology and disclosure, with the aim of improving patient safety."
The training program is one of six recipients of a 2024 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Award for Transformation in Graduate Medical Education.
“Receiving this award speaks so much to the value of this project and to the value of training people methodically to communicate well, because good communication is a form of equity. It’s a skill set that we can offer people to exercise in every clinical encounter, regardless of the situation,” Dr. Puri said.
According to the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the program was selected for its “potential to have a positive impact on the clinical learning environment and to improve the experiences of residents and fellows.”
Pilot program trainees will participate in a patient simulation with specific case details and study the methods of apology and disclosure, practice patient conversations, and receive immediate feedback from standardized patients and faculty members. The training will be held in the Interprofessional Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation, or iCELS, at UMass Chan.
“The project is about building competence and confidence in our trainees in discussions of apology and disclosure, with the aim of improving patient safety,” Dr. Potts said. “This kind of training can improve the general trust of the medical field and really helps patients through difficult issues when these discussions go well.”
The pilot program is expected to start in May and will enroll 10 trainees. Potts and Puri plan to expand the project to another 40 trainees in August. The long term goal is to open the program to all residents and fellows, as well as Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing students.
“Giving people the skill set to navigate tough conversations, develop competence, confidence and comfort in their role, and learning the ethical obligations around good communication is the goal of this project,” Puri said. “Even experienced faculty and physicians have challenges with these conversations and if we can train folks early and give them extra practice, then the hope is the conversations will go better in the future and will really improve patient safety and improve the relationships between patients and their physicians.”
The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Award is for $50,000 over one year.
