Comprehensive Palliative Care Skills for Medical Residents and Fellows
This Learning Pathway contains comprehensive clinical skills training to help medical residents and fellows improve quality of life for patients living with serious illness. Topics include an introduction to the principles and practices of palliative care, communication techniques for effective conversations with patients and caregivers, pain and symptom management, and safe opioid prescribing. This Pathway contains approximately 11.5 hours of learning activities.
Understanding Palliative Care
An introduction to palliative care, how it is delivered, its impact on quality of life, and the growing population of patients who need it.
Checklist of triggers for referral to a specialty palliative care team.
Communicating Effectively During Serious Illness
Communicating serious clinical news to patients and families.
How to discuss patient prognosis in a manner that is sensitive, clear, and supportive.
Strategies for eliciting patient goals and preferences to inform treatment decisions.
Communication techniques for an effective family meeting.
How to initiate and conduct conversations about advance care planning.
In this video, Kacey Boyle, RN, MSPC, leads us through an example of a goals of care conversation between a clinician and a patient.
Why clinicians must unlearn well-intentioned but ultimately harmful conventions about race and ethnicity—and strategies to move forward.
Managing Pain Safely and Effectively
Conducting a comprehensive pain assessment to guide safe and effective treatment.
Clinical training on the biological basis of chronic pain, building patient trust, and non-pharmacological and non-opioid treatments for managing chronic pain in patients with serious illness.
Clinical training on prescribing an opioid trial for the management of a seriously ill patient's chronic pain.
Clinical training course on universal precautions to identify and assess opioid misuse, and prevent opioid use disorder (OUD) in patients with serious illness.
Opioid pocket reference for providers including safe starting doses, equianalgesic chart, and standard dosing strengths.
Managing Common Symptoms
Take this online course to learn evidence-based strategies to identify and treat anxiety in patients with a serious illness.
Constipation occurs in at least 70% of patients living with a serious illness and often goes unrecognized. Take this online course to learn critical skills to identify and manage the impact of constipation.
This online course teaches how to accurately identify and treat depression in patients living with a serious illness.
Take this online course to learn how to manage dyspnea, including the physical causes of shortness of breath and the emotional impact on the patient.
Nausea and vomiting are common symptoms of serious illness, and can cause dangerous complications. Take this online course to learn practical skills to identify, manage, and reduce these symptoms.
Preventing Avoidable Crises
This course provides context and best practices for identifying older adults at risk for poor outcomes, including falls, delirium, and caregiving challenges.
This interactive whodunit game challenges learners to conduct a thorough clinical investigation of a patient with delirium to diagnose the cause(s).
This interactive escape room game challenges learners to conduct a thorough assessment of a patient whose multiple medications may be causing adverse effects, and determine which one(s) are candidates for deprescribing.
Download a PDF of this Learning Pathway
Download PDF
