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Society to host faculty development workshop  The MUSC Apple Tree Society will sponsor a workshop from 3 to 5 p.m., Oct. 1, in Gazes Auditorium.  The workshop entitled, Breaking Bad News to Learners: How to Give Negative or Critical Feedback, will be presented by Franklin Medio, Ph.D., associate dean for graduate medical education, and George Arana, M.D., senior associate dean for graduate medical education. The task of giving negative or critical feedback to learners presents a formidable challenge to most faculty, residency and clerkship directors and administrators.  Learners' mistakes or inappropriate behaviors are often ignored, dismissed, minimized or excused away in an effort to avoid a potentially uncomfortable interaction with this individual. The reluctance  or inability to give learners honest and accurate feedback when their performance clearly falls below acceptable standards is a shortcoming of many, otherwise effective educators. To compound this problem, faculty often complete formal evaluation forms by writing satisfactory, average or marginal when such passing scores do not reflect actual performance.  This informationn is not only misleading to learners and administrators but it also presents a serious problem when chronic unsatisfactory performance calls for remediation or dismissal. This workshop will provide participants with practical strategies to break through the barriers that prevent them from giving critical or negative feedback. It will provide techniques to effectively handle the emotional aspects of these stressful situations. Participants will learn how to incorporate proper documentation methods in order to address the legal elements of academic dismissal.  At the workshop's conclusion, participants will be able to explain the paradoxical statement, “If the interaction with the learner went smoothly, then it did not go well.” Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this workshop, participants should be able to: Identify common barriers that prevent faculty and administrators from confronting learners who exhibit unsatisfactory performance; Explain the parallel processes of breaking bad news to learners and breaking bad news to patients; Describe the five stages of a learner's reaction to critical or  negative feedback and strategies for managing each stage; Describe six common traps that create unfairness and inconsistencies in the evaluation process and techniques to avoid them; Describe the basic elements of a remedial learning contract and other documentation methods to create an educationally sound and legally defendable evaluation system..   Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.