Foundational Skills for All Chaplains
This Learning Pathway contains a comprehensive set of training and tools to help board-certified chaplains address the unique needs of patients and families living with serious illness. Education topics include assessing patient needs and concerns, understanding patients’ goals for care, addressing the suffering caused by symptom burden, and helping patients to avoid crises and plan for the future.
Assess the Needs and Concerns of Patients
Introduction to 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.
Spiritual Screening Tool
Assessment for suffering, distress, disconnection, or spiritual pain. Supportive Care Coalition.
Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI-12)
Self-reported caregiver assessment.
Strengthen the Clinician-Patient Relationship and Understand Care Goals
Discussing Serious News
Learn best practices for having patient-centered conversations about a serious illness diagnosis.
Clarifying Patient Goals of Care
Learn best practices for building trust, eliciting patient values, and having patient-centered conversations about goals of care.
Care Planning
Learn techniques to help patients and their caregivers plan for the future, both during the early stages of a serious illness and as a disease progresses.
REMAP
Structured VitalTalk conversation map for late goals of care conversations.
Hoping for a Miracle? Chaplain Roles with Patients, Families and the Interdisciplinary Team
Talk given by Denise Hess, MDiv, BCC-PCHAC (Executive director of the Supportive Care Coalition) for the Association for Professional Chaplains.
Unconscious Bias: What It Is, How It Influences Health Care, and What You Can Do About It
Defines unconscious bias and how it influences patient care, and provides ways to reduce the impact of unconscious bias on care delivery.
Talking with Patients About Hospice
This resource lists step-wise tips to foster comfortable, productive dialogue for ‘the hospice conversation’.
Manage Pain and Symptoms
Course 1: Pain and its Impact on Our Patients
Learn to define and characterize pain, recognize the prevalence of pain, understand disparities in pain management based on race, ethnicity, and gender.
Course 2: How to Perform a Comprehensive Pain Assessment
Learn the components of a comprehensive pain assessment and its importance in safe and effective pain management.
Course 3: Matching Treatment to Pain Type
Gain an overview of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain treatments, including risks and benefits, and learn how to match the analgesic to pain type.
Course 8: Problems with Opioid Prescribing: Is it an Opioid Use Disorder?
Learn how to identify and diagnose opioid use disorder (OUD) and practice communicating with patients about OUD and pain management.
Prevent Crises and Plan Ahead
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