An approach to educating residents about palliative care and clinical ethics

Despite interest in end-of-life educational efforts, attitudinal barriers s till thwart the integration of palliative care into medical education. The authors present their experience introducing a graduate medical education p rogram in ethics and palliative care at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Through this initiative the au thors sought to enhance residents' knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for effective palliative care. Residents were targeted because they are in a unique stage of their training; while they have mastered many basic clini cal skills they remain open to educational experiences that might alter the ir lifelong practice patterns. Course material was based upon the residents ' experiences. Using their case histories interested them as adult learners and validated the importance of the subject matter, Seminar themes include d professionalism, the physician facing death, ethical, legal, cross-cultur al, and religious issues at: the end of life, and pain and symptom manageme nt. The program provided a valuable educational forum for residents to give voice to their reflections anti receive supportive feedback from peers and faculty. Building upon the residents' own clinical experiences with end-of -life care effectively engaged their interest and provided much-needed inst ruction in this evolving area of study.