Communication, Interdisciplinary Care, and Multicultural Education: The Core of Palliative Care Teaching (P3)

Abstract

1.Describe a longitudinal educational intervention in hospice and palliative medicine for medical and nursing students from several institutions.2.Identify real family members and real patients as mentors and teachers to HPM learners, specifically when seeking to improve communication skills.3.Evaluate interdisciplinary educational methods in hospice and palliative medicine for medical and nursing students. Hospice and Palliative Medicine (HPM) is an interdisciplinary subspecialty recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. HPM strives to provide compassionate care and optimize quality of life in chronically and terminally ill persons and their families. HPM incorporates effective communication, interdisciplinary team work, and multicultural education (CIME) to achieve its goals and skills that all medical and nursing students must acquire to become effective physicians. The CIME is a longitudinal educational intervention aims to provide long-lasting, value-added impact on physician education in the competencies needed to provide HPM. CIME will be administered throughout the 4 years of medical school and 2 years of undergraduate nursing school, in partnership with many course directors of both schools of health. This funded intervention is being developed at three major medical schools in Texas, impacting thousands of medical students and hundreds of nursing students. This educational intervention focuses on symptom control and end-of-life care in frail populations, fulfilling the following educational principles: communication skills instruction for medical and nursing students, exposure to interdisciplinary teams (IDT), and instruction in the multicultural practice of medicine. This session will discuss the different educational tools used by the CIME intervention, specifically, unfolding cases, and early exposure to real, bereaved family members, real patients with symptoms, standardized encounters with very ill patients, and mock team meetings and family meetings. Preliminary data has shown that students feel uneasy to discuss terminal news with a very ill patient and definitely want HPM training. CIME educational activities have improved communication messages, exposure to interdisciplinary care teams, and shown learner satisfaction with direct feedback. Lastly, evaluation methods will be discussed, emphasizing the ACGME HPM competencies, direct feedback, and evaluation by real patients and family members, and future foundations for interdisciplinary education. Structure and Processes of Care