Palliative Care Always Specialization

Integrate palliative care into your daily practice. Master complex communication skills and learn tools to screen for palliative needs and offer basic palliative care.

Palliative Care Always is a specialization for health care practitioners, patients and caregivers. We’ve designed this specialization to demonstrate how palliative medicine integrates with patient care, and to help you develop primary palliative care skills. Over the next five courses, you will develop skills in symptom management, goals of care and effective communication to improve the quality of life for patients and families suffering with serious illness. Our hope is that you feel increasingly equipped to support the diverse needs of your patients and your own needs.

In the core courses, learners will develop patient-provider dialogs applying communications skills to discuss goals of care, symptom management, transitions in care and family and caregiver support. In the capstone course, learners will create public materials to expand the general public’s palliative care literacy along with care plans to support families and caregivers of patients with serious illness and practice mock virtual/remote care.

This course starts you on your journey of integrating primary palliative care into your daily lives. You will learn what palliative care is, how to communicate with patients, show empathy, and practice difficult conversations. You will learn how to screen for distress and provide psychosocial support. You will learn about goals of care and advance care planning and how to improve your success with having these conversations with patients. Finally, you will explore important cultural considerations and improve your cultural competency on the topics covered.

For clinicians, the goal of this course is to help you incorporate primary palliative care into your daily practice or help you know when to seek a specialist. We will help you improve your patient’s quality of life and provide self-care tips to help you maintain your own. For patients and caregivers, this course will empower you to talk to your provider and get palliative care, if necessary.

The Stanford University School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Visit the FAQs below for important information regarding 1) Date of original release and Termination or expiration date; 2) Accreditation and Credit Designation statements; 3) Disclosure of financial relationships for every person in control of activity content.

Who Should Enroll

This course is ideal for healthcare providers and volunteers working in oncology care, and patients and families living with cancer. No prior experience with palliative medicine or cancer care is necessary.