Integrating Hospice Palliative Care Education in Core Curriculum

To integrate or not to integrate - that is the question: Hospice Palliative Education in core curriculum.
My preference is a combined approach! It is important to set aside a place where the focus is on Hospice Palliative Care philosophy, principles and practices. A separate course helps to ensure that the message is not diluted and lost in the context of an entire program. On the other hand, how can you discuss respiratory illnesses and not discuss the process of dying at end stage with COPD? How can you teach about the kidney without teaching about dying with renal disease?
The reality is that illnesses need to be followed from diagnosis through to death.
Body systems should likewise be followed from healthy function through to dysfunction and death.
Human development should follow conception through birth, ages and stages and follow through to death.
So my vote is a "combination" of methods for teaching Hospice Palliative Care, whether you are educating Health Care Workers, Practical Nurses or Registered Nurses.
What do you think?
Please go to facebook to comment! http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&note_id=188486651205552
Kath

Great news from Niagara Falls....

The NACC has just updated their Personal Support Worker Program with the launch of a revised module on caring for the dying!

Last year the "Essentials in Hospice Palliative Care" manual and companion resources were approved by the National Association of Career Colleges for their Personal Support Worker education program. Earlier this year I was invited by NACC to rewrite the curriculum about caring for the dying person.

I was thrilled to develop this module, now titled "Care of the Dying Person and Their Family: Essentials in Hospice Palliative Care".

Thanks to Linda Von Tettenborn for your consulting support, and thanks to the NACC Advisory Committee for your expertise.

Today the presentation to launch the materials was well received. We look so forward to hearing how the implementation goes for the colleges and welcome any feedback!

Early this morning Ted and I walked along by Niagara Falls. What an amazing site, all the more amazing because we were alone in the early morning hours. As I contemplated the "Seven Wonders of the World" I reflected on caregivers, the incredible contribution they make and suggest that caregivers are also one of the great wonders of the world!

Kath

Dr. Dana Cable - an inspiring mentor and professor, and a great leader in thanatology....

I love to tell stories of people.... how they have inspired me, guided me, shared great moments together.... And if I was to share these memories of Dana three months ago, it would have been as easy as that... but today, after his all too sudden death, it feels difficult to sum up my thoughts in a public forum, and to share something that would have meaning to anyone other than myself and my "Hood College colleagues".

Parker Palmer in his fabulous book "The Courage to Teach" states "Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The methods used by these weavers vary widely: lectures, Socratic dialogues, .... The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts..."

In 2004 I traveled to Hood College to check out their Masters in Thanatology program while attending a course at Johns Hopkins University just an hour south. It was obvious from my first meeting with Dana, that Dana was student centered. He was willing to support my unique needs as a student traveling from the other side of the continent.

After addressing the practical concerns of how I could combine on-site, distance, transfer, and independent study... one question remained....












"Why Hood College?"

Why was this program not offered at Johns Hopkins or some prestigious college or university?

I learned the answer in the months that followed -

Why Hood College?

The answer - Dana Cable.

In the summer of 2004 and some of 2005, I lived in Frederick, Maryland.















It was a rather fairy tale existence. I studied, ate soft pretzels, walked the streets and park of this historic town, and then more of the same. I always expected girls to come skipping down the steps of the beautiful old brick buildings wearing poodle skirts!

Classes were held in basement rooms that lacked style or charm. And sitting in the uncomfortable old desk/chairs, using outdated equipment, Dana would teach.... and teach he did.

Dana presented theory and told stories. The hours cruised by. He was inspiring, and we were inspired.

He taught about Near Death Experiences . One day in class Dana asked, "If you could take one thing with you when you die, what would it be?"

After some discussion a student asked Dana what he would take. He replied, "A fork."

In answer to the question he told us a story from his childhood.... after dinner, his mom would clear the table and say, "Save your fork, the best is yet to come."

With love and gratitude for a beloved man,

Kath


Dana's formal obituary can be found at:
http://www.staufferfuneralhome.com/obits/obituary.php?id=36543