Conversations of a Lifetime

Build your serious illness communication skills with practical, actionable tips!

If you are a clinician who cares for patients with serious illness and their families, you need a toolbox of communication skills. Discussing serious news, prognosis, and goals of care are just a few of the topics in this innovative learning deck of tips. Mastering the skills in this app—which sends you a practical, actionable tip every weekday—will enable your patients to understand their medical situation better, build more trust with you, and make medical decisions that match their values. Your patients will be better informed, more oriented to what really matters, and more at peace.

VitalTalk worked with the Conversations of a Lifetime program in Cincinnati, in developing this app, to reinforce a series of communication workshops. But even if you haven’t had a course yet, you’ll find a wealth of tips (and literature to back them up) that will make a difference the next time you’re going into a tough conversations. The topics include: serious news, prognosis, early goals of care, advance directives, family conferences, late goals of care, conflict—and more!