Resident Physician University of Washington/Seattle Children's Pediatric Residency Program Seattle, WA, Washington, United States
Background: Prenatal counseling offers an opportunity for providers to build trust, explore emotions, and provide support prior to delivery, yet residents get little training in these critical skills and there is limited evidence on how to best teach these skills. Based on Sawyer et al’s Learn, See, Practice, Prove, Do, Maintain framework, we propose a combined program of didactics, observation, simulation, and real-life application as an ideal way to address this educational gap (Sawyer et al, 2015). Objective: Our primary goal is to develop a multidimensional educational curriculum for residents to improve their confidence and gain experience with empathic communication skills in prenatal counseling for families expecting a late preterm infant. Our secondary goal is to assess and optimize a virtual standardized patient (VSP) platform for resident learning. Design/Methods: We developed a curriculum including a didactic session called “Building Trust Through Empathic Counseling” (Learn), a clinical guideline that emphasizes observing a counseling conversation with a senior provider (See), practice with a VSP (Practice), and clinical experiences providing prenatal counseling to families (Do) with the expectation that a senior provider will provide feedback (Prove). Use of a VSP with natural-language processing is a novel approach to providing a realistic, safe, and accessible space for resident learning. This quantitative study uses pre- and post-surveys to assess participant’s change in knowledge and comfortability with critical communication skills used in prenatal counseling. Feedback from families who receive prenatal counseling will also be collected via an empathy experience survey. We have collected 91 pre-surveys and 19 post-surveys. Preliminary data suggests improvement in resident confidence in providing medical information and offering meaningful support. Respondents who have completed a counseling session with the VANESSA VSP report positive experiences. Survey collection will continue for an additional six months followed by final descriptive statistical analysis.
