As Program Director for UT Southwestern’s VitalTalk Advanced Communication Training Program, Caitlin Siropaides, D.O., has taught hundreds of clinicians how to have more empathetic conversations with seriously ill patients and their families.

VitalTalk, a national nonprofit organization, recently recognized Dr. Siropaides’ dedication with a Faculty Leadership Award. Since 2018, Dr. Siropaides has grown the UT Southwestern program into one of the largest cohorts of trained VitalTalk facilitators in the country. Besides teaching UTSW clinicians, Dr. Siropaides earned a national certification as a VitalTalk Senior Faculty member, which enables her to teach communication methodology across the country.

Caitlin Siropaides, D.O., has taught hundreds of clinicians how to have more effective conversations with seriously ill patients through the VitalTalk program that she leads at UT Southwestern.

Dr. Siropaides, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, expressed appreciation for the honor. She said teaching the program to medical students and faculty as well as training facilitators has been rewarding. Each year, the UTSW VitalTalk program educates more than 720 medical students, 200 residents and fellows, and 75 clinicians.

“This evidence-based program impacts every clinician, and the more we teach these skills, the more its impact grows,” she said.

Soon after she arrived at UTSW and began working in palliative care, Dr. Siropaides said, she recognized a need for communication training in her department.

“They wanted to know how to break bad news,” she said. “They wanted to learn how to share information in a way that was concise, but without medical jargon.”

VitalTalk provided colleagues with the appropriate language to use in conversations with their patients, she said. Through half-day workshops, clinicians learned how to listen, support, and be empathetic with patients.

“For some people, empathy comes naturally, but doctors can get caught up in the science and forget how to respond to emotions,” she said. “Empathy is something you have to verbalize; you have to name emotions and appreciate the patient’s perspective.”

When patients are dealing with a serious illness, they are at their most vulnerable time, Dr. Siropaides said. “But it’s also a very vulnerable time for clinicians. We feel bad when we have to share bad news.”

Learning effective communication skills not only benefits patients, but it helps the physician too, Dr. Siropaides said.

“There’s a lot of data showing patient outcomes improve,” she said. “But from the clinician’s perspective, burnout improves, and they feel more connected.”

Select UTSW faculty train for certification as facilitators of VitalTalk workshops for their colleagues and trainees.

Since Dr. Siropaides began teaching the workshops, demand for the course has grown. She is now helping mentor more than 15 multispecialty faculty in their pursuit of communication skills training and development of specialty-specific serious illness communication courses within their programs.

Having difficult conversations with patients requires skill, precision, and a compassionate heart to bring about healing and growth, said Krystle K. Campbell, D.H.A., M.S.M.S., CHSE, Director of Operations at UT Southwestern’s Simulation Center, which uses “standardized patients” for simulation learning exercises. These “patients” are frequently trained through the VitalTalk program.

“Dr. Siropaides has built a program using our Center’s compassionate, well-trained standardized patients, which provides critical education via an authentic, psychologically safe environment,” she said. “Her dedication to transforming health care education is inspirational.”