Impact of a Novel Goals-of-Care Communication Skills Coaching Intervention for Practicing Oncologists.

Oncologists routinely have opportunities for goals-of-care (GoC) discussions with patients. GoC discussions increase the likelihood that patients receive care consistent with their values. However, oncologists often feel ill-equipped to discuss end-of-life care.

Development and Validation of the ACP-CAT for Assessing the Quality of Advance Care Planning Communication.

Context: High-quality advance care planning (ACP) discussions are important to ensure patient receipt of goal-concordant care; however, there is no existing tool for assessing ACP communication quality.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop and validate a novel instrument that can be used to assess ACP communication skills of clinicians and trainees.

Methods: We developed a 20-item ACP Communication Assessment Tool (ACP-CAT) plus two summative items.

Goals of Care Ambulatory Resident Education: Training Residents in Advance Care Planning Conversations in the Outpatient Setting.

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) discussions often occur in the inpatient setting when patients are too ill to participate in decision making. Although the outpatient setting is the preferred time to begin these discussions, few physicians do so in practice. Many internal medicine (IM) residents report inadequate training as a barrier to having outpatient ACP discussions.

Food allergy as a risk factor for asthma morbidity in adults.

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between food allergy and asthma morbidity in adults.

Methods: We interviewed a cohort of persistent asthmatics from an inner-city clinic. Allergies to food were assessed by patient report of convincing symptoms of acute allergic reactions.