The Highpoint Health System’s Home Health and Hospice Palliative Care Department, based in Lawrenceburg, Ind., Has developed a credited course in palliative care for nursing students, in collaboration with the Ivy Tech Community College, as part of the college nursing complex medical surgery program.

Most clinicians do not receive training in palliative care or palliative care during their degree programs. In fact, many clinicians working in other settings do not have a solid understanding of what palliative care or palliative care is. Most palliative care nurses are trained on the job or seek continuing postgraduate training. Physicians pursuing careers in palliative care typically must participate in a scholarship program to receive their training.

“In May 2018, I started praying about how I could connect with Ivy Tech Community College and find students to volunteer for hospice care,” said Patti Warning, a Highpoint grief counselor who has considered the program for the first time. “After being introduced to Tamara Schwing, Program Director and Associate Professor of Nursing and Jane Becker, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Ivy Tech, I wanted to work with them to find a way to add palliative care training to the school curriculum. “

The development of the course comes at a time when hospices nationwide are struggling to find ways to fill their ranks as demand for their services grows and the workforce shrinks due to departures from abroad. retirement and staff burnout.

Some field workers have called for ways to accelerate the training of clinicians in palliative care or palliative care or to integrate the principles of palliative care into nursing and medical curricula.

“A lot of staff would need additional training. We all train in the hospital. During training, we spend a lot more time in an intensive care unit than on an outpatient basis, and most medical residents never set foot in a patient’s home, ”said Diane Meier, MD, executive director of Center to Advance Palliative Care, at Hospice. News in May. “The training should be reversed, so that the majority of clinical time is spent in doctor’s offices or home visits and much less time in the acute care hospital, as we expect clinicians to start working. ‘occupy people in the home. “