Pharmaceutically Enhancing Medical Professionals for Difficult Conversations

Conducting “difficult conversations” with patients and caregivers is one of the most difficult aspects of the medical profession. These conversations can involve communicating a terminal prognosis, advance care planning, or changing the goals of treatment. Although they are challenging, the need for these conversations is underwritten by the tenets of medical ethics. Unfortunately, medical professionals lack adequate training in communication skills and overestimate their abilities in conducting difficult conversations. I suggest that one way to improve that ability would be the strategic use of pharmaceutical neuroenhancements. Pharmaceutically augmenting a professional’s capacity for recognizing masked emotional expressions might conduce to his or her development of open and responsive communication with patients and caregivers. I conclude by examining the limitations and objections to this use of a communication enhancement by illustrating that it would still require the development of, and indeed a greater emphasis on, communication skills in medical education and training. Conducting difficult conversations is one of the most challenging aspects of working in the practice of medicine. As I use the phrase, difficult conversations are discussions with patients and caregivers that center on terminal prognoses, advance care planning, or changing the goals of treatment. Not only is it an ethical necessity that medical professionals have these conversations, but – depending on the individual’s communication skills – these conversations also directly impact the outcomes and wellbeing of patients and caregivers. Yet, medical professionals are given little education or training relating to communication skills. Instead, they must rely on mentorship from more experienced