Voices of the Future: Junior Physicians’ Experiences of Discussing Life-Sustaining Treatments With Hospitalized Patients

TL;DR

Junior physicians in Switzerland find discussing life-sustaining treatments with patients emotionally challenging and often feel unprepared due to insufficient training.

Contribution

This study explores junior physicians' experiences and learning strategies in discussing life-sustaining treatments, highlighting gaps in training and emotional challenges.

Findings

Junior physicians reported feeling unprepared and emotionally burdened when discussing life-sustaining treatments.

Participants learned through trial and error but valued mentoring and experiential training.

Physicians felt under pressure to ensure medically indicated decisions while respecting patient autonomy.

Abstract

Life-sustaining treatments (LST) aim to prolong life without reversing the underlying medical condition. Being associated with a high risk of developing unwanted adverse outcomes, decisions about LST are routinely discussed with patients at hospital admission, particularly when it comes to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Physicians may encounter many challenges when enforcing shared decision-making in this domain. In this study, we map out how junior physicians in Southern Switzerland refer to their experiences when conducting LST discussions with hospitalized patients and their learning strategies related to this.

In this qualitative exploratory study, we conducted semi-directive interviews with junior physicians working at the regional public hospital in Southern Switzerland and analyzed them with an inductive thematic analysis.

Nine physicians participated. We identified 3 themes: emotional burden, learning strategies and practices for conducting discussions. Participants reported feeling unprepared and often distressed when discussing LST with patients. Factors associated with emotional burden were related to the context and to how physicians developed and managed their emotions. Participants signaled having received insufficient education to prepare for discussing LST. They reported learning to discuss LST essentially through trial and error but particularly appreciated the possibility of mentoring and experiential training. Explanations that physicians gave about LST took into account patients’ frequent misconceptions. Physicians reported feeling under pressure to ensure that decisions documented were medically indicated and being more at ease when patients decided by themselves to limit treatments. Communication was deemed as an important skill.

Junior physicians experienced conducting LST discussions as challenging and felt caught between advocating for medically relevant decisions and respecting patients’ autonomy. Participants reported a substantive emotional burden and feeling unprepared for this task, essentially because of a lack of adequate training. Interventions aiming to ameliorate junior physicians’ competency in discussing LST can positively affect their personal experiences and decisional outcomes.

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