MedEdPORTAL · Published 2026-07-29 · DOI 10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11623
Anne Sullivan, Stephen D. Brown, Erin Ward, David Williams, Donna Luff, Cassandra R. Duffy, Yael Hoffman Sage, Melissa Spiel, Christy Cummings
Introduction Educational interventions addressing counseling at extreme prematurity to date have focused on single-specialty clinicians, overlooking the important communication and collaboration required by maternal-fetal medicine and neonatology for optimal counseling. This simulation-based workshop aimed to unite maternal-fetal and neonatology clinicians to enhance interspecialty-personalized and family-focused counseling at extreme prematurity. Methods We developed and conducted 3 half-day virtual workshops with neonatology and maternal-fetal medicine attendings and fellows utilizing a combination of didactics, scenarios with simulated participants, and facilitated debriefs, including a cofacilitator with lived patient-family neonatal intensive care unit experience. Results A total of 26 clinicians participated in the 3 workshops. After the workshop, 92% of participants felt “more prepared” or “much more prepared” to have difficult conversations with families. Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses found key themes among participants, including increased adoption of parent-driven and personalized counseling approaches, enhanced interspecialty collaboration between maternal-fetal medicine and neonatology, and greater awareness of and efforts to mitigate bias in antenatal counseling. Discussion This novel workshop facilitated interspecialty collaboration between maternal-fetal medicine and neonatology when counseling at extreme prematurity and emphasized relational skills, personalized counseling, and bias mitigation techniques.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
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Sullivan, A., Brown, S., Ward, E., et al. (2026). Development of a Joint-Specialty Simulation-Based Workshop to Optimize Counseling at Extreme Prematurity. MedEdPORTAL. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11623