Introduction: There is a lack of formal palliative care education for surgical trainees, and the demanding nature of surgical training and exposure to challenging clinical scenarios can contribute to moral injury. We developed a palliative care curriculum to promote self-reflection, aiming to address moral injury in residents.
Methods: Five 1-h palliative care sessions were delivered over the academic year to all post-graduate year (PGY) levels covering the following topics: personal awareness, delivering bad news, surgical palliation for cancer pathology, surgical palliation for noncancer pathology, and urgent palliative care. The curriculum focused on reflection and small group discussions. The Moral Injury Symptom Scale-Health Professional was administered to assess feelings of moral injury. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared analysis, and Mann-Whitney U-test were used to compare the demographics and survey responses.
Results: 23 participants completed the preintervention survey, and 9 participants completed it postintervention. Over 50% of participants were PGY1 or PGY2 residents. Preintervention, 52% of participants reported feeling guilt over failing to save someone from being seriously injured or dying. 30% of participants reported that the feelings of guilt, shame, or distrust impaired their ability to function in relationships, at work, or other areas of life to at least a moderate degree.
Conclusions: The described palliative care curriculum accomplishes several goals as follows: it educates residents on palliative care topics, teaches communication tools, encourages self-reflection, and provides space for building peer relationships. The ease of implementation makes this curriculum applicable across various types of institutions, offering the potential to positively impact surgical training on a national scale.
Keywords: Burnout; Education; Moral injury; Palliative care.
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