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T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion Empathy and Compassion
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Sessions for groups

We have divided our group sessions into two categories: CLINICAL and RESEARCH. You might choose to follow one path, or mix and match, based on your group interests.  All sessions listed are currently taught as interactive workshops on zoom.

Clinical and team foundational workshop

The 30,000-foot view

This session introduces our foundational framework of compassionate listening and reinforces the importance of knowing your audience, your goal, and yourself. The session introduces a team conflict and helps you recognize a simple process to step away from snap-judgment and into conscious connection with others. 

By the end of this session, you can expect to:

  • Recognize the impact of assumptions on team dynamics
  • Identify tools to expand perspective
  • Discuss preparation strategies for difficult conversations 

Skills applications: choose your own adventure

Speak Plainly

Communication about medicine is emotional and complicated. It requires us to make conscious choices to connect in order to become more responsive to the needs of your patients and their families. This lesson will draw on techniques in journalism to help you recognize the needs of your listener in order to shape your message into clear, conversational language.

By the end of this session, you can expect to:

  • Recognize the perspective of your listener
  • Define and translate technical language into clear, impactful messages
  • Understand the impact of ordering information

The Clinical Story: rethinking the process

Despite participating in hundreds of clinical encounters, we are sometimes left with the nagging feeling that something did not go “right”. This small group in-person session is meant to provide an environment to revisit the steps and process of a clinical encounter using our compassionate communication approach. We will determine what communication skills we can tweak to improve the outcome for ourselves and our patients. 

By the end of this session, you can expect to –

  • Understand critical steps in the process of the clinical encounter
  • Identify personal communication challenges
  • Practice specific skills using our framework with roleplay

Reimagine Conflict

Conflicts may arise in any interpersonal encounter. How can you prevent unnecessary and dysfunctional conflict, while embracing productive conflict that supports and encourages innovation and growth? In this workshop, we will discuss how assumptions about others’ actions can lead to conflict. We will discuss different conflict styles and learn how to use these appropriately through interactive discussions and roleplay.

By the end of this session, you can expect to –

  • Understand how our assumptions contribute to conflict.
  • Conflict styles and how to determine what you need.
  • Practice the necessary steps to conflict resolution.

Learning to Listen

In this session, we will introduce you to our communication framework and give you the opportunity to discuss and practice. We will consider the story of a patient, her family, and her physician that spans 30 years and includes 21 surgeries. Participants will be given an opportunity to discuss their learning and reflect on their own experiences as patients and healers. Roleplay and interactive exercises will be included in this session.

By the end of the session, you can expect to:

  • Practice listening in order to consciously connect
  • Recognize communication traps that can exist in long-term care
  • Understand the impact of emotions and goals

Structure and Timing; it’s not a joke

In the face of fear... How can you prepare your patient for the unexpected or the unimaginable? This process will help you grapple with the impact of fear and introduce a simple structural pattern to deliver surprising or unexpected news. This session will enable you to practice roleplay scenarios. You will also reflect as a team on the impact of fear as you share difficult news. 

Communicating my research

If you struggle with jargon and explaining technical language, you might choose to begin with Translating my research. If you are a more experienced science communicator, you can move past Translating my research and proceed to The Big Idea or Finding the story.

Translating My Research

Do you struggle to explain technical concepts to the lay public?  This one-hour workshop will lay the foundation to help you shape your message into clear, conversational language that impacts and engages your audience, from funders and the media, to patients and families. 

By the end of this session, you can expect to:

  • Recognize the perspective of your listener
  • Define and translate technical language into clear, impactful messages
  • Understand the impact of ordering information

The Big Idea

This session helps you structure a clear, simple, audience-specific message to relay your ideas, needs, research, or complicated information. The session allows you to practice as a team before using the BIG IDEA tool to craft your own message.

By the end of this session you can expect to:

  • Appreciate the main point you need to relay
  • Identify and build on the common ground between you and your audience
  • Practice using a tool to structure your message effectively        

Finding the story

Our What's the Story form is one of the most impactful ways of communicating. This session will introduce the structure and concept of story and help you craft a story about your research or work that can be used as a model for longer or shorter presentations to a variety of audiences, including leaders, funders, and the public.

By the end of this session you can expect to:

  • Identify the message that will most effectively impact your audience
  • Prepare your message into a story structure
  • Give and receive peer feedback

If none of the above target the challenges faced by your group, email infoccc@health.ucsd.edu to request a consultation so your training can be customized to the needs of your department, leadership group, interdisciplinary team, research team, etc. 

How do I book a session?  

Please email infoccc@health.ucsd.edu and/or complete our Workshop Inquiry form to describe your communication challenges or the workshop/modules you would like to learn. We will contact you with follow-up details. Or you can fill out the Individual Coaching form for one-on-one sessions. We will contact you with follow-up details.