Teaching Conversations Around Advance Care Planning: A Novel Educational Model Utilizing a Peer Mentor Approach

Outcomes 1. Participants will be able to recognize the role of early exposure to the navigation of advance care planning conversations and palliative care needs of patients regardless of desired specialty in medicine. 2. Participants will be able to describe a model for teaching advance care planning for early career professionals through a train-the-trainer model Key Message Nearly all healthcare providers will encounter a patient navigating serious illness at some point. We describe an initiative that leverages a peer train-the-trainer model to increase early learner comfort with advance care planning discussions. Introduction With an aging population in the face of an annual loss of palliative care physicians, there is an increasing need for new providers to become well-versed in approaching goals of care of their patients. Medical students report limited exposure to and comfort with navigating patient goals of care, particularly as they pertain to end-of-life. 1,2 Formalized curricula for medical students have demonstrated the ability to increase comfort with broaching these important conversations with patients 3 Train-the-trainer models have been successfully utilized to improve communication of palliative care concepts in healthcare professionals. 4 We describe the utilization of this model to facilitate health professional student exposure and comfort with navigating discussions around advance care planning. Methods This project teaches medical students to learn to navigate conversations in advance care planning (ACP) with patients admitted to our institution utilizing an ACP worksheet that focuses on understanding what matters most to patients. After students complete an orientation where they both learn the fundamentals in ACP and have the opportunity to practice these conversations under the supervision of experienced students and faculty, they are eligible to attend weekly sessions where they navigate these same conversations with patients admitted to our institution. Student trainers guide more novice learners through conversations and facilitate post-session debriefing along with palliative care faculty. Results We present the evolution of this initiative, including a sister initiative called The Companion Project, as well as student-surveyed perceptions of the initiative. Conclusions Not all medical curricula are created equal hence we aim to present a sustainable, scalable and easily implementable palliative care education initiative and its impact on participating students. Keywords Models of Palliative Care Delivery; Resilience / Well being