Foundations of Palliative Care
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Pace
Instructor-led
Subject
- Advanced
Credit
CE/CME Certificate
Platform
Continuing Education from Harvard Medical School
What you'll learn
Conduct serious illness conversations with patients and families that demonstrate compassion, that inform care plans, and that achieve a shared understanding for moving forward.
Perform a whole person assessment of the patient that uses research-based tools, that includes evaluation of pain and other symptoms, and that encompasses psychosocial and spiritual factors, as well.
Manage the physical and psychological symptoms of seriously ill patients in an informed, responsible, and compassionate way.
Attend to the needs of imminently dying patients and to families and loved ones who are experiencing grief and bereavement.
Contribute to an interprofessional palliative care team with a deep understanding of the respective roles that physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, social workers, and chaplains have to play.
Engage in practice with a deeper understanding of palliative care and hospice care, providing context for individual patient care.
Course description
The purpose of the course is for participants to gain primary palliative care knowledge and skills, with an emphasis on whole person assessment, whole person support and symptom management, and serious illness conversations.
Instructors in the course will include clinicians who are practicing palliative care across the Harvard Medical School affiliate hospitals in the Boston area. The course faculty have provided rigorous learning experiences through other programs offered through the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, including Practical Aspects of Palliative Care and Palliative Care Education and Practice. Foundations of Palliative Care will build on the success of these courses.
This two-day course is designed for all members of the palliative care team to learn the fundamentals of effective practice. We encourage interdisciplinary teams to enroll together and to bring back to their settings the benefits of a shared experience and a common language. Group discounts are available for team enrollment.
We have designed this course to be meaningful to pediatrics and adolescent medicine clinicians through presentation and skill-building in common palliative care tasks for all ages such as assessment, communication, and grief and bereavement. The course will attend to content for pediatric providers where the skills and concepts are significantly different.
We seek to prepare, encourage, and inspire palliative care clinicians across all roles on an interdisciplinary team. Foundations of Palliative Care will be the first course in a new three course arc to be offered through the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, with the subsequent courses aimed for introduction in the first part of 2026.
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