) The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) has major affiliations with several hospice organizations in the Denver Metropolitan area. Based on these affiliations, a curriculum in palliative care is presently in place. Since palliative care programs in this country have expanded greatly in the past 10 years but there has not been an increase in palliative care education, the goal of this present application is to greatly expand the presently available curriculum in palliative care at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Implementation and evaluation of this new curriculum will hopefully satisfy the two major hypotheses behind this application: 1) there will be improvement in the student's knowledge of symptom management and the ability to approach the dying patient; and 2) this knowledge will lead to a better understanding of hospice care and allow for better utilization of hospice services in this community.
The specific aims of this application are: 1) To expand a rigorous rotation in hospice care for medical and nursing students. This expansion of already existing programs will allow for increased time of exposure as well as allowing inclusion of more students into the program. 2) To develop a comprehensive multidisciplinary, seminar/lecture series in various aspects of palliative care. This program will be required of trainees in hematolo- gy/oncology, all third- year medical students, and nursing students and other health care professionals. 3) To continue to develop and evaluate the current elective rotation in residential hospice medicine available to hematolo- gy/oncology trainees and geriatric trainees at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. 4) To develop and provide an outreach palliative care program utilizing the seminar/lecture format described above. This program will be directed toward physicians (particularly family practice physicians), nurses and other health care professionals involved in palliative care of patients in small urban and rural areas. 5) This educational experience will be evaluated utilizing specific questionnaires regarding attitudes toward pain and other quality of life issues of terminal patients. Hospice admission data will assess utilization of hospice services. Other innovative evaluation tools will be used, in particular, the standardized patient model to assess senior medical student's approach to a patient with a terminal illness. It is expected that this program will greatly improve knowledge in the medical community regarding an appropriate approach to dying patients as well as understanding symptom management in a palliative care setting. This improvement in knowledge and understanding of hospice care will be reflected by improvement in utilization of this important service, particularly as evidenced by a more timely referral of patients.
| Seligman, P A; Fink, R; Massey-Seligman, E J (1998) Approach to the seriously ill or terminal cancer patient who has a poor appetite. Semin Oncol 25:33-4 |
