Palliative Practice Training

Lesson 1 • Populations Served and Settings

Identifies patient populations, disease trajectories, and care settings relevant to palliative practice. Prepares practitioners to recognize appropriate referral and integration points.

Lesson 2 • History and Evolution of the Field

Traces palliative care from the hospice movement to modern interdisciplinary practice. Contextualizes current standards within historical advocacy and policy shifts.

Lesson 3 • Defining Palliative Care

Clarifies the WHO definition, goals, and misconceptions about palliative care. Sets the philosophical baseline for all subsequent clinical and ethical content.

Lesson 1 • Roles Within the Palliative Team

Maps the responsibilities of physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and allied health members. Establishes role clarity as a prerequisite for effective team function.

Lesson 2 • Family as Part of the Care Team

Positions family members as active partners in care planning and delivery. Addresses caregiver burden, family dynamics, and inclusion strategies.

Lesson 3 • Interprofessional Communication

Teaches structured communication tools for handoffs, rounds, and case conferences. Reduces errors and improves care continuity across team members.

Lesson 1 • Neuropsychiatric and Refractory Symptoms

Addresses delirium, depression, anxiety, and symptoms unresponsive to standard treatment. Prepares practitioners to escalate care appropriately and consider palliative sedation.

Lesson 2 • Pain Management in Palliative Care

Covers pain classification, opioid and non-opioid pharmacology, and titration principles. Addresses barriers to adequate pain control in palliative populations.

Lesson 3 • Principles of Symptom Assessment

Introduces validated symptom assessment tools and patient-reported outcome measures. Establishes consistent assessment as the foundation for individualized symptom management.

Lesson 1 • Foundations of Goals of Care Discussions

Defines goals of care and distinguishes them from code status discussions. Frames these conversations as ongoing processes rather than single events.

Lesson 2 • Delivering Serious News Effectively

Applies structured frameworks such as SPIKES to deliver difficult diagnoses and prognoses. Builds skills in managing emotional responses during high-stakes conversations.

Lesson 3 • Eliciting Patient Values and Priorities

Teaches open-ended questioning and reflective listening to uncover what matters most to patients. Connects patient values directly to treatment decision-making.

Lesson 1 • Decision-Making Capacity Assessment

Teaches the four-component capacity standard and documentation requirements. Distinguishes capacity from competence and guides surrogate activation.

Lesson 2 • Ethical Frameworks for Clinical Practice

Reviews principlism, virtue ethics, and narrative ethics as applied to palliative dilemmas. Provides a shared vocabulary for interdisciplinary ethical reasoning.

Lesson 3 • Withholding and Withdrawing Treatment

Addresses the ethical and clinical equivalence of withholding versus withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. Guides practitioners through family communication and procedural steps.

Lesson 1 • Cultural Humility in Palliative Practice

Addresses cultural variation in death, dying, disclosure, and decision-making. Builds skills in culturally responsive communication and care adaptation.

Lesson 2 • Spiritual Care and Existential Distress

Teaches spiritual history-taking and recognition of existential suffering distinct from religious need. Equips non-chaplain clinicians to provide basic spiritual support.

Lesson 3 • Grief, Loss, and Anticipatory Mourning

Covers grief models, anticipatory grief in patients and families, and complicated grief indicators. Prepares practitioners to provide timely support and referrals.

Lesson 1 • Comfort-Focused Medication Management

Covers medication selection, routes, and dosing for comfort in the actively dying patient. Addresses discontinuation of non-comfort medications and symptom anticipation.

Lesson 2 • Family Presence and Support at Death

Guides practitioners in supporting families through the dying process and moment of death. Addresses cultural rituals, presence preferences, and immediate bereavement needs.

Lesson 3 • After-Death Care and Bereavement Follow-Up

Covers post-death care tasks, bereavement outreach, and staff debriefing practices. Closes the care episode with dignity and supports ongoing family grief.

Lesson 1 • Designing and Running QI Projects

Applies PDSA cycles and change management principles to palliative care improvement projects. Guides practitioners from problem identification through sustained implementation.

Lesson 2 • Program Evaluation and Reporting

Covers logic models, evaluation design, and reporting outcomes to leadership and funders. Positions palliative programs for continued organizational support and growth.

Lesson 3 • Quality Metrics in Palliative Care

Introduces structure, process, and outcome metrics specific to palliative care programs. Connects measurement to accreditation standards and organizational accountability.