With apologies to the Doobie Brothers…
This morning as I was driving through the sunny (finally!) winter wonderland that is Upstate NY and was reflecting on how being involved teaching/directing ACT has impacted both my own practice and my teaching of trainees.
I am very much indebted to VitalTalk for their very logical and useful framework for teaching communication. I have found Tony Back et al.’s “Could I add something?” article to be especially helpful in Takin’ ACT/VitalTalk skills into the real world.
Using these methods has allowed me to be much more deliberative in practicing the skills for myself, and has helped me talk about talking with trainees/colleagues/etc. Naming something is powerful, and having names like MVP and NURSE has allowed me to make some progress in deconstructing conversations so they can be analyzed and reconstructed for the next encounter.
My fire is lit, and I am hoping that our amazing ACT Team will be able to spark some similar fires in both our palliative care and heme/onc colleagues during their respective ACT Courses next week!
– Tom Carroll
act-ur.com 