FAM 2104W FM HOSPICE & PALLIATIVE MED
As the baby boom generation ages, current and future physicians will need to be better skilled at providing palliative care for patients with serious illnesses with significant morbidity or symptom burden as well as to be better equipped to help appropriate patients transition into hospice care. It is estimated that by 2030, there will be 1 palliative-boarded physician for 26,000 palliative care-eligible patients. At that rate, there is a very low likelihood that a patient near the last years or months of his life will EVER get palliative care from a boarded PC specialist. Family medicine specializes in the holistic approach to whole-patient care in the context of family members and the community. Palliative care and family medicine share many similarities in principle and this course is intended to give a broad but comprehensive approach to the medical evaluation and care of patients with complex diseases, worsening organ failure, cancer progression etc. and to educate students about the differences between palliative care and hospice care, instruction about better patient-centered communications as well as basic symptom management and end-of-life pain treatment.
Prerequisite
* DEANS APPROVAL REQUIRED * Enrollment in this course is completed by the office of the Registrar after approval has been received.