Registration

Faculty

Schedule

Practical Aspects of Palliative Medicine: Integrating Palliative Care into Clinical Practice

October 10-12 , 2008

This 3-day course is designed to offer physicians and other clinicians the core information and skills they need to provide palliative care in their practice settings.  Through our interactive sessions, participants will develop a "toolbox" of the skills they need and will have numerous opportunities for meeting with colleagues facing similar practice challenges. Plenary, workshop, and meet-the-professor sessions will review how to assess and manage no only physical causes of distress in patients with advanced disease, but also the psychological, social, spiritual and existential distress that occurs in patients and their families.

Supported in part by an educational grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To download the course brochure in Adobe PDF format, click here.

Course Directors:

J. Andrew Billings, MD
Director, Palliative Care Service, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Co-Director, Center for Palliative Care, Harvard Medical School

Susan D. Block, MD
Chief, Division of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham & Women's Hospital
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Co-Director, Center for Palliative Care, Harvard Medical School

Course Description

Featured in 2007
Keynote: Eric Cassell, MD

This 3-day course is designed to offer physicians and other clinicians the core information and skills they need to provide palliative care in their practice settings. Through our interactive sessions, participants will develop a "toolbox" of skills they need and will have numerous opportunities for meeting with colleagues facing similar practice challenges. Plenary, workshop, and meet-the-professor sessions will review how to assess and manage not only physical causes of distress in patients with advanced disease, but also the psychological, social, spiritual, and existential distress that occurs in patients and in their families. We will provide guidance on the ethical challenges that arise in caring for patients at the end of life, including requests for physician-assisted suicide and issues common to the ICU setting. We will also discuss the special problems of patients with a history of addiction, or who are elderly or living in a long term care facility. Delivering palliative care involves skilled communication with patients and their families; the course therefore offers sessions on a variety of communication issues, including breaking bad news, how to work with "difficult" patients or "difficult" families, and how to support a bereaved family member. In the Sunday sessions, we discuss hypnosis, self-care, healing, and spiritual approaches to care at the end of life.

Each morning and afternoon session begins with a plenary. The keynote speaker in 2007 was Dr. Eric Cassell, who spoke on "Practical Aspects of Healing." Bridget Fowler, PharmD, and Dr. Craig Blinderman discussed "Palliative sedation for physical, psychological, or existential distress" in the afternoon plenary. In the Saturday morning plenary, Dr. Susan Block interviewed a bereaved family member and then discussed the interview with course participants. Dr. Nina Muriel revealed the needs of children of patients with advanced disease in the afternoon plenary. Sunday, Dr. Holly Prigerson spoke on "Peace at the End of Life: New Understandings,' and the conference ended with Dr. David Giansiracusa speaking on "Sustaining our Abilities to Provide End of Life Care."

Course Objectives

This course will enable clinicians to:

1. Assess the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual/existential causes of distress in patients with life-limiting diseases and their families and create management plans to address them.

2. Acquire practical strategies for introducing discussions of patient fears, hopes, goals, and wishes regarding care at the end of life, including use of life-sustaining technology, balancing hope and honesty in discussing treatment options, and dealing with the ethical issues that arise at the end of life.

3. Develop strategies for conducting discussions of difficult issues and working with patients who present challenging personality problems and families with complex family dynamics.

If you have additional questions, please contact us via e-mail at: pallcare@partners.org or call Venus Watson at 617-582-7859.