Speakers: Arwen Pieterse (rEACH) and Ana Carvajal De La Torre (tEACH)

This special webinar demonstrates how research and teaching can support and complement each other via the topic of shared decision making (SDM). Two experts in the field, Arwen Pieterse and Ana Carvajal De La Torre introduce SDM through the glasses of a researcher and that of a teacher respectively.

Arwen Pieterse:

Arwen H. Pieterse, PhD is Associate professor in medical decision making at Leiden University Medical Center (NL) and Visiting professor at Oslo University (Norway). She was trained in cognitive psychology (Leiden University), obtained her PhD (2005) in patient-centered communication (Utrecht University, NL), and was a Research fellow of the Dutch Cancer Society (2008-2011). Since then, she has obtained multiple grants to study doctor-patient communication and patient involvement in treatment decision making. She has received the 2018 research award from the International Association for Communication in Healthcare (EACH). She is Associate editor of Patient Education and Counseling since 2017, and has (co-) authored >95 peer-reviewed international papers. She chaired the highly-rated International Conference on Communication in Healthcare (ICCH) 2022.

Shared decision making (SDM) is a clinical decision model that is highly recommended when multiple possible treatment options could fit an individual patient best. Addressing this uncertainty requires creating choice awareness in the patient and then, ideally, going through a decision process in which the patient is involved in order to combine the best scientific, medical, and clinical evidence, and what is important in this patient’s life. Measuring the extent to which patients are involved in treatment decisions depends on the perspective that is taken (perspective of the physician, patient, or an independent observer), and may depend on the exact definition that is used – many definitions exist, yet they share key elements. Regardless of perspective and definition, research shows that true patient involvement in treatment decision making is still uncommon in clinical practice. This is a call for more, better, and/or other training of (future) clinicians in shared decision making.

Ana Carvajal

Ana Carvajal is a family physician working in a Primary Care Service in A Coruña, Spain. For more than 25 years she has been participating in the Communication and Health Program of the Spanish Society of Family Medicine, which is a national reference in planning and teaching communication skills in the postgraduate field. Throughout these years she has organized and participated in courses and workshops on communication skills for organizations such as Medical Colleges, local Health Services, and National Scientific Societies. She has been a collaborating teacher in undergraduate Medicine courses at the Faculty of Medicine of Santiago de Compostela (2007-2009). Her specific fields of interest are Motivational Interviewing and Shared Decision Making. She is currently doing her PhD on patient participation.

The adoption of SDM into routine practice is not happening at the pace expected. SDM is a teachable skill, and the teaching of SDM in the curricula seems to be one of the best strategies to facilitate its implementation in practice.

SDM trainers face challenges: barriers, paternalism, professional inertia, and clinicians’ difficulty with numeracy. SDM teaching comprises high-level communication skills and specific core competencies: relational competencies and risk communication competencies; components of SDM training programs include multiple learning strategies, interactive sessions, and the use of decision aids.

Trainers can transmit attitudes towards SDM by listening to participants’ needs, difficulties, and learning objectives, understanding that not all participants are at the same learning level or maturity for the practice of SDM. The objective in the first place is to help students and healthcare professionals change attitudes and behaviors toward learning and implementing SDM.

Time – 6pm BST, 7pm CEST

Read the flyer here