Implementing cancer pain education for medical students

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a cancer pain e ducation course for medical students, using a structured home hospice visit , DESCRIPTION OF STUDY: A 1-hour home hospice visit was presented to 57 senio r medical students. The content and Objective criteria for the structured h ome hospice visit were developed by a multidisciplinary group of experts. D uring a 1-hour interview, students completed a cancer pain history, perform ed a focused physical examination, and received feedback and teaching regar ding the essentials of cancer pain management from the hospice nurse. All s tudents and hospice patients completed a multi-item evaluation questionnair e with a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) r egarding the structured home hospice visit. RESULTS: Most students agreed strongly that the home hospice visit was a po sitive experience (mean +/- SD 4.8 +/- 0.44) that helped them to understand flit, management of cancer pain (mean 4.7 +/- 0.46) and opioid-related sid e effects (mean 45 +/- 0.57). Most patients enjoyed visiting with the stude nts (mean 4.90 +/- 0.30), agreed that the visit was not tiring (mean 4.81 /- 0.51), and felt that they benefited from participating (mean 4.76 +/- 0. 54). CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: The authors concluded the following: 1) that medical students benefited from learning about cancer pain assessment and manageme nt through the use of a structured horne hospice visit; 2) that a structure d home hospice visit helped the students to learn the basics of cancer pain management; 3) that patients enjoyed their role as teacher for medical stu dents; and 4) that senior hospice nurses provided excellent instruction for medical students in the management of cancer pain.