Breaking Bad News Training in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

Gehan Soosaipillai; Stephanie Archer; Hutan Ashrafian; Ara Darzi

doi:10.1177/2382120520938706

Breaking Bad News Training in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2020 Jul 10:7:2382120520938706. doi: 10.1177/2382120520938706. eCollection 2020 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Gehan Soosaipillai^{1

2}, Stephanie Archer^{1

3}, Hutan Ashrafian¹, Ara Darzi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK.
² Transforming End of Life Care Team, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
³ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

Abstract

COVID-19 has disrupted the status quo for healthcare education. As a result, redeployed doctors and nurses are caring for patients at the end of their lives and breaking bad news with little experience or training. This article aims to understand why redeployed doctors and nurses feel unprepared to break bad news through a content analysis of their training curricula. As digital learning has come to the forefront in health care education during this time, relevant digital resources for breaking bad news training are suggested.

Keywords: Breaking bad news; COVID-19; End of life care; Medical education; Nursing education.

Publication types

News