The following is a summary of “Pediatric Cardiology Condolence Letter Writing: Does a Fellowship Curriculum Impact Practice?” published in the September 2023 issue of Pain and Symptom Management by Haxel, et al.

Writing a condolence letter (CL) following a child’s loss provides a meaningful opportunity for humanity. Despite the vulnerability of their patients, CL is rarely taught in pediatric cardiology fellowship programs despite the growing recognition of the necessity of palliative care. A rigorous CL writing program was developed and deployed in a pediatric cardiology fellowship to bridge this professionalism gap. The purpose of this research was to examine how a pediatric cardiology curriculum might affect students’ CL writing and pedagogy more generally. An anonymous online multiple-choice and open-ended survey was administered to pediatric cardiology fellows at a high-volume urban academic program from 2000 to 2022 to evaluate the CL curriculum and describe current CL practices and beliefs. 

The significance of curriculum components was ranked on an ordinal scale. Physician behaviors were reported using a 5-point Likert scale for making between-group comparisons. Researchers  used chi-square tests of independence. 63% of those who were surveyed filled it out. 80% vs 40% of cardiologists who participated in the curriculum reported writing CLs (P<  0.01). Having all fellows participate in a common learning (CL) (cited by 78%) and assigning a primary fellow to write the CL (66%) were cited as influential pedagogical practices. 

Participants in the curriculum reported, by a margin of more than 75 percent, that formal instruction improved their CL-writing frequency, skill, and comfort. The training of pediatric cardiologists should include more instruction on how to convey sympathy for patients who have died.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885392423005286