Dr. Olivia Henry, a CA-2 resident, is a recipient of a two-year, $15,000 Back to Bedside grant from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for her project, “AI-Powered End-of-Life Care Training.”
The Back to Bedside grant is an initiative designed to enhance the doctor-patient relationship by supporting innovative projects that improve patient care, physician well-being, and educational outcomes. Dr. Henry’s project aims to develop an Artificially-Intelligent Conversational Agent (AI-CA) to help residents practice and learn essential skills for discussing end-of-life care with patients. The team will build and implement this innovation within Weill Cornell Medicine’s Anesthesiology residency program.
In reflecting upon this award, Dr. Henry says, “I’ve experienced profound and impactful conversations with patients, which were among the most significant in my medical training. However, I often encountered challenging inquiries from patients about death and dying, for which I felt unprepared.”
Dr. Henry wondered if she could provide better clarity in her responses during critical points of care. She also recognized that residents could greatly benefit and strengthen their patient relationships by dedicating time to learn and practice the principles of palliative care. Dr. Henry notes that with recent advances in AI, she “realized an AI-CA could provide an efficient and accessible method for this kind of training.”
Dr. Henry’s mentors for this project are Drs. Eric Brumberger (residency program director), Rohan Jotwani, John Rubin, and Dr. Irene Yeh from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Brumberger has long been excited by the premise of the Back to Bedside program. The earliest interactions with patients surrounding end-of-life issues are fraught with apprehension, anxiety and stress; improving communication with and connection to patients enhances meaning and fulfillment for health care providers. Drs. Jotwani and Rubin lead XRAIL, an Extended Reality Anesthesiology Immersion Lab. XRAIL’s objectives include pre-procedural planning for patient care and safety, virtual peer-to-peer communications, and AI-assisted training soft skills training like the end-of-life conversations that Dr. Henry’s project will address.