Abstract Background Effective communication underpins high-quality care in every medical context, yet it is in the ICU, where discussions revolve around tenuous and uncertain patients, that these skills become indispensable. Our institution offers a structured ICU communication curriculum for interns during their MICU rotation. Given the evolution of communication education over the past decade, we conducted a needs-assessment survey to evaluate the curriculum’s current relevance and identify opportunities for refinement. Methods Utilizing best practices of survey design, we created and distributed an anonymous survey to internal medicine and emergency medicine residents who completed the ICU communication curriculum during their MICU rotation. The survey was divided into three domains evaluating course organization, relevance, and appropriateness, along with four open-ended response questions. Survey questions were assessed with Likert-scale items (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Descriptive statistics were calculated using means and standard deviations for continuous variables and frequencies for categorical variables. Thus far, of 154 eligible residents, 54 (35%) have completed the survey. Data collection remains in progress. The survey will remain open until April 2026 and is expected to yield additional responses before presentation. Results Baseline (pre-course) confidence in managing conflict and leading family meetings was low (means 2.5 ± 0.97 and 2.7 ± 0.93, respectively), underscoring the need for structured communication training in residency. Mean ratings across most items were neutral (∼3 on a 5-point scale). However, residents responded favorably to the lived-experience videos (mean 3.96 ± 1.10), agreed that facilitators created a safe learning environment (mean 3.94 ± 0.81), and recommended the videos for future courses (mean 4.00 ± 1.06). Open-ended comments emphasized the value of standardized-patient feedback and reflective debriefing, while time constraints and scheduling were cited as barriers. Conclusions The ICU communication course addressed a clear learning gap, as residents reported low baseline confidence managing conflict and leading family meetings. Learners valued experiential components, particularly lived-experience videos, standardized-patient feedback, and facilitator support. Qualitative feedback thus far suggests that residents sought more challenging, realistic cases and deeper engagement around procedural consent and prognostic uncertainty. As communication training becomes more widespread in medical training, this data will be used as a needs assessment to inform future iterations of this course. In this way, the course can evolve to meet learners where they are, emphasizing more nuanced simulations that deepen skill acquisition. This abstract is funded by: None
Safar et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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