Christopher Jons, MD, Physician Director, WWAMI Missoula

Susan Merel, MD, FACP, Professor, Medicine

Abstract: Serious illness communication skills need to be learned and practiced by all physicians and trainees in order to provide compassionate, patient-centered care. Despite the rapid growth of the field of palliative care as a clinical discipline and area of academic research over the last few decades, significant gaps remain in the availability of palliative care specialists, especially in rural areas, as well as evidence-based guidelines for best practices in teaching these skills in undergraduate medical education. The vast majority of WWAMI clerkship faculty lack training in serious illness communication, so teaching our students requires teaching our faculty as well. We propose the development and integration of a serious illness communication skills curriculum into 4 clerkships in Missoula, consisting of the following components:

1) Training up faculty in these core skills using the evidence-based methodology VitalTalk

2) Providing a curriculum for students participating in the clerkships

3) Development of a novel WBA assessing an entrustable professional activity involving two core components of serious illness communication (responding to emotion and delivering a headline). We will assess the feasibility of implementing this curriculum in Missoula as a first step to potential expansion into other WWAMI sites.

Date & Time:
Thursday, June 4, 2026
2:00pm – 3:00pm  (PT), 1:00pm-2:00pm (AKST), 3:00pm-4:00pm (MST)

Location: Zoom (Link will be in registration email)

Registration: WIP: Feasibility of WBA-based approach to Teaching and Assessing Communication Skills