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Teaching Medical Students How to Break Bad News with Standardized Patients

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Abstract

One of the biggest challenges that a physician will face is conveying difficult news (CDN) to a patient. The ability to provide this information may either strengthen or destroy the patient–physician relationship. Despite the importance of this skill, formal education for medical students has been limited. To improve upon skill building in the medical student experience, fourth year medical students (on their oncology clerkship) spent 3 hours partaking in a CDN session. During this session, each student had a videotaped encounter with a standardized patient, followed by a small group discussion and review of the tape with other students and a clinician. We evaluated the experience with pre- and post-questionnaires assessing overall knowledge, satisfaction, and specific components of the curriculum. The objective of this study was to review our institution’s educational program focused on teaching techniques for CDN.

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Acknowledgment

F. Alejandro Montiel-Ishino

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncologic Sciences, Moffitt Cancer Center, University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, USA

    John V. Kiluk, Sophie Dessureault & Gwendolyn Quinn

  2. H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 Magnolia Drive, MCC Br- Prog, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

    John V. Kiluk

Authors
  1. John V. Kiluk
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  2. Sophie Dessureault
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  3. Gwendolyn Quinn
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Correspondence to John V. Kiluk.

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Kiluk, J.V., Dessureault, S. & Quinn, G. Teaching Medical Students How to Break Bad News with Standardized Patients. J Canc Educ 27, 277–280 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-012-0312-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-012-0312-9

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