“Practicing Serious Illness Conversations in Graduate Medical Education”

In this publication co-authored by Dr. Michael Pottash, the researchers address the lack of routine practice opportunities in medical training to have a serious illness conversation, including discussing patients’ expectations, concerns, and preferences regarding an advancing illness. By testing incorporating a serious illness conversation into routine trainee practice, they identified that trainees found it to be an important addition to their routine practice. For the patients, the conversation was important, reassuring, and of better quality than their usual visits.