Crossing Boundaries and Piloting a Common Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for Multiple Disciplines

Developing effective communication skills is an important component of geriatric, palliative care, social work, and oncology training programs. The purpose of this educational initiative was to pilot two OSCEs to multi-disciplinary trainees in the context of a palliative care hospital consultation team. Learners included nurse practitioner students, social work students, and physicians-in-training from geriatric, oncology, and palliative medicine fellowships. Working with an established simulation program, scenarios were developed to cover two common palliative care topics: 1) discussing goals of care and 2) breaking bad news. Learners completed the standardized patient interview, then evaluated the encounter and had individualized feedback from the standardized patient. The learners then debriefed together in a multidisciplinary, facilitator-led session on the encounter. Overall, learners reported that the sessions were appropriate for their level of training, the portrayal by the standardized patient was convincing, the experience would help in future interactions with patients, and that the feedback from the standardized patient was especially useful. As a group, the learners reported that hearing others’ perspectives was helpful in gaining pearls on how they approached the communication tasks at hand. In the future, our next step is to make the patient encounter more interdisciplinary. We will create a family meeting with a standardized patient, a physician, a nurse, and a social worker all in attendance with similar feedback and discussion. This will allow fuller development of the varied roles of each profession within one scenario and thereby enhance the learners’ interprofessional understanding. Learning Objectives: 1. To develop effective communication skills in the palliative care setting for nurse practitioners, physicians, and social workers using a standardized-patient learning curriculum. 2. To practice necessary palliative care communication skills. 3. To evaluate differences in communication approaches as well as general roles among members of an interprofessional palliative care team