Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Oct;3(4):385-8.
doi: 10.4103/0974-2700.70760.

Breaking bad news education for emergency medicine residents: A novel training module using simulation with the SPIKES protocol

Inchoel Park  1 , Amit Gupta, Kaivon Mandani, Laura Haubner, Brad Peckler
Affiliations

Breaking bad news education for emergency medicine residents: A novel training module using simulation with the SPIKES protocol

Inchoel Park et al. J Emerg Trauma Shock. 2010 Oct.

Abstract

Breaking bad news (BBN) in the emergency department (ED) is a common occurrence. This is especially true for an emergency physician (EP) as there is little time to prepare for the event and likely little or no knowledge of the patients or family background information. At our institution, there is no formal training for EP residents in delivering bad news. We felt teaching emergency medicine residents these communication skills should be an important part of their educational curriculum. We describe our experience with a defined educational program designed to educate and improve physician's confidence and competence in bad news and death notification. A regularly scheduled 5-h grand rounds conference time frame was dedicated to the education of EM residents about BBN. A multidisciplinary approach was taken to broaden the prospective of the participants. The course included lectures from different specialties, role playing for three short scenarios in different capacities, and hi-fidelity simulation cases with volatile psychosocial issues and stressors. Participants were asked to fill out a self-efficacy form and evaluation sheets. Fourteen emergency residents participated and all thought that this education is necessary. The mean score of usefulness is 4.73 on a Likert Scale from 1 to 5. The simulation part was thought to be the most useful (43%), with role play 14%, and lecture 7%. We believe that teaching physicians to BBN in a controlled environment is a good use of educational time and an important procedure that EP must learn.

Keywords: Delivering bad news; education; simulation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparative chart of the mean Likert scores. Likert scale (1, lowest to 5, highest) given to each aspect of the workshop
Figure 2
Figure 2
The most useful sessions
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Nawar EW, Niska RW, Xu J. National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2005 Emergency Department Summary. Adv Data. 2007;386:1–32. - PubMed
    1. Stewart M, Brown JB, Boon H, Galajda J, Meredity L, Sangster M. Evidence on patient doctor communication. Cancer Prev Control. 1999;3:25–30. - PubMed
    1. MacLeod RD. On reflection: Doctors learning to care for people who are dying. Soc Sci Med. 2001;52:1719–27. - PubMed
    1. Barnett MM, Fisher JD, Cooke H, James PR, Dale J. Breaking bad news: consultants’ experience, previous education and views on educational format and timing. Med Educ. 2007;41:947–56. - PubMed
    1. Vaidya VU, Greenberg LW, Patel KM, Strauss LH, Pollack MM. Teaching Physicians How to Break Bad News A 1-Day Workshop Using Standardized Parents. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1999;153:419–22. - PubMed