January 2020 Communication Tip

Serious Illness Conversation Guide (SICG) Step 1

Like many of you, I came back to work with my December StarCard report in my email inbox.

With the start of the new year, consider a resolution to work on improving your communication skills.

As we recently heard from Diane Sliwka, New Years Resolutions tend to work best when they are small and do-able.

This month’s tip introduces the Serious Illness Conversation Guide (SICG), a proven aid for busy clinicians to discuss Goals of Care with patients facing serious illness.  The SICG comes from Atul Gawande and his Ariadne Lab at Harvard.  Checklists work!

The guide is attached.

This month, I encourage clinicians just to try out step 1 of the SICG:  asking permission to talk about Goals of Care.

You can practice saying something like:

“I’d like to talk about what is ahead with your illness and do some thinking in advance about what is important to you so that I can make sure we provide you with the care you want — is this okay?”

or simply:

“I’m hoping we can talk about where things are with your illness and where they might be going — is this okay?”

Over the next months, we will focus on the subsequent steps.

For January, try just opening up a brief discussion by asking for permission.

All My Best,

mike