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Day One Talk Videos

Innovative videos for global childhood cancer: a multidisciplinary approach to family-centered education

Day One Talk Videos

The idea

This idea for the creation of the Day One Talk (D1T) videos was born when the Global Health Initiative (GHI) and Persistent Productions were collaborating on the How I Live documentary. While filming, one of the pediatric oncologists asked the team to create an educational video that healthcare providers could use when providing a diagnosis to patients and their families. This prompted us to think more broadly about how film could be used in global health settings to supplement existing educational materials and discussions between healthcare providers and patient families.

The research

The Day One Talk (D1T) videos were developed to complement research conducted by Dr. Erin McCann while she was at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. As a graduate student intern with the Global Health Initiative, she worked closely with Irini Albanti, DrPH, MPH, MA. Dr. McCann led a patient education qualitative study which included four pediatric oncology facilities in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Panama, and she explored family and staff educational needs after a child is diagnosed with cancer. Among other findings, this research showed that in low-resource settings, healthcare providers may have a limited amount of time that they can spend with patients and families. Often at their initial discussion, when patients and families first learn about the diagnosis, families are so overwhelmed that they cannot remember all of the information. With this data as background and existing research conducted by Jennifer Mack, MD, MPH, and other Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s faculty and staff, we created a two-part series of videos around the Day One Talk: one for healthcare providers that could serve as a training tool and one made specifically for patients and families that discusses the “patient family” perspective on the beginning of a child’s journey with cancer.

The Day One Talk videos

The Day One Talk (D1T) training videos for healthcare providers and families were co-designed by our GHI team, pediatric oncology patients, family members, and practitioners. These user-friendly, practical education tools may assist teams and families in having a discussion that is more appropriate, sensitive, and family-centered. The hands-on training video highlights the importance of healthcare providers, patients, and families being prepared to conduct difficult conversations at the workplace and feeling empowered to ask questions in a safe environment to advance patient outcomes and improve quality of care. The training video includes interviews and input by a multidisciplinary team of pediatric oncology physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, patients, and families, and the Pediatric Patient and Family Advisory Council (PPFAC) at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s.

View the videos