College Receives Grant to Develop Palliative Care Curriculum

The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a two-year, $513,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop palliative care educational programs for medical students and faculty at six US schools.

David E. Weissman, MD, FACP, Medical College of Wisconsin Professor of Medicine and Director of the Froedtert & the Medical College Palliative Care Program, is the project director. The project will be led by the College's Palliative Care Center and Office of Educational Services and includes co-investigators from Harvard Medical School and the University of Rochester.

As part of the project, required and elective palliative care courses will be developed and established for third- and fourth-year medical students at each of the six pilot site medical schools. Faculty development programs in palliative care will also be developed and established.

"Our goal with this project is to improve the care of patients with serious and life-threatening illnesses by providing medical students with early exposure to required and elective palliative care educational experiences," said Dr. Weissman. "We also want to train school faculty in the most effective ways of teaching palliative care."

Six medical schools will be recruited for the project and will be provided access to teaching materials through End-of-Life/Palliative Education Resource Center (EPERC), an online palliative care educational resource funded by Robert Wood Johnson and coordinated by the Medical College. Examples of the types of materials that will be provided on the site include:

• PowerPoint presentations and CD-Rom presentations
• Video clips demonstrating communication skills
• Testing
• Student essays describing their experiences in providing end-of-life care

Representatives from participating schools will also have the opportunity to attend PCEP (Program in Palliative Care Education and Practice), a two-week immersion experience for physicians and nurses in palliative care educational methods and clinical practice. Developed at Harvard Medical School, it is considered the premier palliative care faculty development program in the United States.

"Through more than 15 years of palliative care educational research, we have developed methods and resources for teaching medical students and faculty the most effective ways to care for and communicate with terminally ill patients and their families," said Dr. Weissman. "We are thankful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for providing the support we need to share what we've learned with other medical schools around the country."

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.