Education

Advancing the knowledge and skills of all health professionals providing care for seriously ill patients.

Core Curriculum

The Core Curriculum contains the most important Fast Facts within a particular palliative care domain or speciality area. These can be used to supplement a Generalists Palliative Care training initiative, for on-boarding new palliative care specialists, for health professional trainees working in hospice and palliative medicine or for “just in time” education to meet a clinical problem.   

Palliative Care Lectures

Do you need to give a lecture or just want to review key information about a palliative care topic?   Listed below are 16 lectures developed by David E. Weissman, MD and others, covering the range of palliative care topics.

Learner Assessment Tools

Learner assessment can take many forms. Here are some basic tools suitable for physician and nursing learners; these can be used for medical and nursing students, residents and clinicians in practice.

Palliative Care Curriculum Guides

Curriculum guides developed for the National Residency End-of-Life Education Project, 1997-2004; last updated in 2015.  The material includes: Pretests, Learning Objectives, Content Outlines, Case Studies and Role Play Exercises.  The material is divided into 15 topic domains, grouped into the four sections below.  Click one of the four buttons to download a file containing the listed topic domains. The material is suitable for physician, nursing, social work and chaplain education.

Pain, Communication, Other Symptoms, End-of-Life Topics

Video

A communication skills trigger video with good/bad examples of common scenarios.

READ FIRST – Using the communication video

Training Resources

ELNEC – End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium
Comprehensive in-person end-of-life training course for nurses; multiple courses for different nurse audiences.

EPEC
In person or on-line complete course in palliative/end-of-life care for generalists and selected physician specialists.

Online Master of Science and Graduate Certificates in Palliative Care
The 30-credit interprofessional Master of Science in Palliative Care is completely online and can be completed in five semesters or at your own pace. In addition to the Masters of Science, the University of Maryland Graduate School has five Graduate Certificates that focus in Palliative Care including Clinical Aspects of Hospice and Palliative Care, Leadership and Administration on Hospice and Palliative Care, Psychosocial/Spiritual Aspects of Hospice and Palliative Care, and Aging and Applied Thanatology.

PCIC – Palliative Care Interdisciplinary Curriculum
Comprehensive on-line curriculum in 17 training modules.

Vital Talk
Palliative care communication in-person training; app and on-line materials available.

PCEP – Palliative Care Education and Practice
Two week intensive course in clinical care and education for doctors and nurses, Harvard Medical School.

Graduate School – University of Colorado Denver
The Master of Science in Palliative Care (MSPC) requires 36 credit hours, including pain and symptom management and communication skills, prepares providers — physicians, nurses (including BSN and advanced practice nurses), physician assistants and pharmacists — to be Palliative Care (PC) Community Specialists.

Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence – University of Washington
The innovative, interprofessional curriculum offered at University of Washington will be jointly offered through the UW Schools of Medicine and Nursing as a 9-month graduate certificate course for clinicians with who are pursuing or have completed graduate level training (MD/DNP, ARNP, M.Div., PhD, MSN, and MSW)