GiTalk: A Novel Palliative Care Communication Curriculum for Gastroenterology Fellows (QI619)

•Report the impact of a communication curriculum for gastroenterology fellows on their self-reported preparedness for discussing prognosis and goals of care.•Report the willingness of gastroenterology fellows who attended the communication curriculum on making it a required part of their fellowship training. Patients with gastrointestinal and liver disease have substantial unmet palliative care needs. Given limitations in the specialty palliative care workforce, it is imperative to develop interventions to improve primary palliative care skills among gastroenterology (GI) clinicians. To increase preparedness among GI fellows to elicit patient and family values, discuss prognosis, and provide a values-based treatment recommendation through a full-day communication curriculum. We developed a novel communication curriculum tailored for GI fellows at a large academic medical center. The curriculum consisted of didactics led by VitalTalk-trained experts and encounters with standardized patients. Learners were presented with two clinical cases that were drafted with input from GI faculty members to ensure relevance to practice. Learners completed pre- and postsession surveys measuring self-reported preparedness to communicate with patients about a variety of challenging topics and were also asked for feedback about the session. All seven GI fellows in their second year of fellowship attended the session. Mean learner age was 34 years; five were male, three identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, two as South Asian, and two as Caucasian. Presession surveys resulted in an average score of 3.35 out of 5 in self-reported preparedness to discuss prognosis and goals of care. At the conclusion of the course, the average score increased to 4.30, and the overall course rating was 4.86 out of 5. All learners reported that they would recommend the training to others and that the training should be a required part of fellowship training. A full-day communication curriculum for GI fellows could be an effective way to enhance communication skills for clinicians who provide care to a patient population with substantial unmet palliative care needs. All participating GI fellows felt the communication curriculum should be a required part of their fellowship training.