Complex Care Conversations

Building a Community of Healing Complex Care Conversations is an interactive curriculum designed for small groups to increase clinicians’ comfort and effectiveness communicating with patients facing serious illness. Participants are provided tools for better communication that work not only with patients but also with peers in navigating emotionally laden topics or conflict. This program offers a framework for goals of care conversations and provides participants with “words that work” when communicating these difficult topics so important conversations may occur earlier in the disease, more often through the course of an illness, and be more impactful. The framework elicits patient’s wishes and preferences in a way that is mutually transformative for clinicians and patients. In addition, sessions that support other difficult aspects of caring for the seriously ill such as assessing decision making capacity, working with surrogate decision makers, and formulating and discussing prognosis are part of the day. CME and CE credits are available for physicians, NPs, PAs, nurses and social workers.