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Program to Enhance Relational & Communication Skills (PERCS)

 PERCS
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Flower Participant Testimonials

"The actors were phenomenal! It felt very real participating in the scenarios."


"I think this is invaluable because any help I can get in preparing myself for these situations is positive. One can only get better at it. Open it up to a larger audience - everybody should attend this."


"Just having the opportunity to practice this type of conversation was invaluable. We have so few opportunities to do that, and when we do, it is usually in the actual crisis situation."


"The immediate reflections have taught me that there is a dual role of being professional and being human and humane in difficult situations - both are important in counseling and connectivity with patients and their families."


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"Thank you so much for including us in your PERCS training program, "Difficult Conversations at the End of Life." It was an extraordinary opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across departments on enhancing critical communication skills. In an environment that places an enormously high premium on advancing surgical and technical standards of care, it was refreshing to devote collective intellectual energy to cultivating the other half of the medical equation -- the emotional standard of care.

Most appreciated was the manner in which your team was able to set the day's agenda and learning. In this sometimes hierarchical environment, it was a pleasure to leave one's badge at the door and allow ourselves to brainstorm and break down barriers with colleagues across departments and disciplines. These endeavors may be essential in facilitating our collective ability to provide the level of care and respect our patients demand and deserve. Thank you for a tremendous day. We look forward to follow-up training opportunities from your team."


"Thank you for a great experience yesterday. I have thought about my performances all last night and this morning. So finally, I thought that maybe I SHOULD look at the videos. As I will be doing a lot of this type of thing (difficult discussions with families) starting in July, I wanted to use this experience to learn about myself under these circumstances."


"I need to thank you profusely for giving me the opportunity to go to the PERCS course yesterday. That really was an amazing experience. These kinds of educational opportunities are really revolutionary - especially in medicine - and I think that they are tools that will be or should be mainstays for any teaching hospital. P.S. Not only were the actors incredibly real, the scenarios were emotionally draining. I felt like I needed a Valium by the end of the day."


"I had a completely different idea of what today was all about. I like the fact that people are willing to talk about death and dying. It's much needed and appreciated."


"Incredibly valuable to see different people in action, not just to hear about theory."

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"The feedback from the mother in the first scenario was so profound. She has a child and she has only limited time left with her. I will keep that in mind when talking with families of chronically ill children."


"I am an educational psychologist and instructor. I work in a major simulation center affiliated with one of the largest medical training programs in the world. Our primary focus is on resident and faculty training in crisis management. The PERCS course was inspirational for us. Because of what we were able to learn in this outstanding course, we are working on scenarios that involve unexpected death. We have already tried out an unexpected death in the OR for residents and an unexpected death aboard an air ambulance. In both cases, the scenarios involved the clinical portions of care and (although it's unusual for our style of training) extended to dealing with a mystified and upset family.

We still have a significant amount of development work to do in order to get the scenarios and the teaching surrounding the scenarios to be as good as we would like, but PERCS set us on the primrose path. We are planning to pilot test the scenarios again and hope that we will be able to get consulting experience from the highly-expert PERCS staff."


"It's okay (and even advisable) to express regret or sorrow for the patients' difficulties and for mistakes made in the patients' care."


"I think it was helpful watching others respond to a mother - and for that response to backfire - it was challenging to try and think of how I would have directed the conversation."


"What I learned is that one doesn't have to be perfect or have all the answers, one has to be genuine and real."

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