Highlights
- •Primary Palliative Care by the primary team is essential to high quality care.
- •8 multi-professional focus groups with 34 total individuals, qualitative approach.
- •Surgical resident engagement in palliative care can be maximized by starting their involvement in a pre-operative setting.
- •A focused curriculum to build basic palliative care skills is needed.
Abstract
Background
A shortage of palliative care (PC) sub-specialists highlights the need for quality
PC provided by treating surgeons, although no established curriculum exists to teach
surgical residents PC skills. To guide curriculum development, we sought to determine
what modifiable factors contribute to surgical residents successfully providing PC.
Methods
Eight focus groups with 34 participants were conducted. Semi-structured interviews
were recorded, transcribed, and de-identified. Inductive thematic analysis was utilized
to encode, identify, and categorize emergent themes.
Results
Barriers to resident involvement in PC included: Limited Knowledge/Inexperience, Communication
Difficulties, Time Constraints, and Burnout. Factors supporting resident involvement
included: Patient Relationship/Rapport, Expertise Guiding PC Discussions, and Institutional
Support. Communication skills that support successful PC delivery include establishing
rapport, managing conflicts, avoiding bias, and acknowledging personal/scientific
limitations.
Discussion
This work identifies modifiable factors that support surgical residents providing
PC. Faculty and institutional support, resident education on PC principles, and expanding
clinical experience with PC may be the most modifiable from a programmatic perspective.
Curriculum and process development focused on these areas will help optimize surgical
resident's success delivering PC.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 28, 2022
Accepted:
February 25,
2022
Received in revised form:
January 26,
2022
Received:
November 20,
2021
Identification
Copyright
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