Educators Forum: ‘Getting Better All the Time’—Giving Faculty Tools for Effective Feedback and Quality Improvement (P13)

Abstract

•Understand and describe the role of effective feedback and communication when working with learners in a variety of settings.•Identify and practice unique skills for communicating with learners and educators, rather than patients and families, when having difficult conversations.•Explain the role and growing importance of quality improvement in medicine, including the scholarly work done by learners and faculty.•Learn and apply strategies for successfully facilitating quality improvement with learners. Hospice and Palliative Care (HAPC) educators are constantly striving to improve their efforts for learners of diverse backgrounds and stages of education. This session will focus on two of the most pressing and quickly developing topics in education: feedback and quality improvement (QI). The session will be facilitated by five recognized educators and experts in these fields. Effective feedback is desired by all, but rarely thought to be delivered. This is true even in HAPC, a field with a great emphasis on communication. The rising generation of learners identify feedback as a key to learning. The session will first focus on helping educators recognize the role of effective feedback and the way that the learner, expectations, and setting help determine what is truly effective. Drs. Beck and Yang will discuss the areas of overlap and divergence in communicating with learners compared with communicating during our clinical work. Through practice in small groups, educators will gain perspective on their own style and challenges. They will then assess their needs and the methods to improve feedback in their own learning environment. QI has become a driving force of change in healthcare and a rigorous field of academic work. It has been instrumental in navigating the challenges and broad possibilities faced in HAPC. As a new generation of learners progress, many educators may find themselves asked to mentor or directly participate in quality improvement projects. Many educators feel unprepared for such work. Dr. Kamal and Lakin will give educators tools for navigating QI learning opportunities. The presenters will use their experience and published work to comment on common pitfalls and keys to success when implementing QI in an educational environment. Participants will join small breakout groups to brainstorm ways to take these lessons into their own work.