Busting Stigma: Empathic Communication
GO2 for Lung Cancer is involved in an ongoing collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) to develop training for doctors in empathic communication. This training teaches physicians how to communication with those living with lung cancer without using stigmatizing language. GO2 helped conduct interviews with people with lung cancer so that the researchers developing the content could learn more about patient experiences. The training module has been pilot tested at MSKCC and a scientific publication resulted, with one of the GO2 for Lung Cancer team members as an author.
This project has recently been expanded and will be tested nationwide across 16 sites, including eight GO2 for Lung Cancer Centers of Excellence. Oncology providers at participating sites will receive this previously tested training and evaluate its impact on their communication and empathy skills. Patients of participating providers may be selected to share their perception of stigma and care satisfaction after the training. This combination of patient and provider focused data will help to drive progress in de-stigmatizing lung cancer and smoking cessation.
How can you help?
If your center is interested in potentially participating as a field site, please contact GO2’s research team at research@go2.org to learn more about the study and enrollment.
How is this research funded?
This study is funded by National Cancer Institute R01 Grant #1R01CA255522-01A1 to PIs Dr. Smita Banerjee and Dr. Jamie Ostroff.