UW and Providence Hospice launches palliative care training program

The University of Washington in collaboration with Providence Hospice of Seattle has launched a new program to train doctors who want to specialize in palliative care.

Specialists in palliative care seek to alleviate the severity of pain and other symptoms of disease rather than seeking to cure disease and to reduce the physical and emotional suffering that many patients experience at the end-of-life.

In a statement announcing the launch of the new program, Dr. Wayne McCormick, medical director of Providence Hospice of Seattle and Program Director of the UW Palliative Medicine Fellowship program, called the program a “giant step forward in helping patients at the end of their lives – and their families too.”

“Palliative care recognizes the emotional side of the human experience,” McCormick said. “It recognizes that everyone dies and that the medical community and the patients served should embrace that and find a way to make it – at least – a comfortable passage and – at best — to celebrate it as the human experience.

“This is a shift from where American medicine is now. This way of thinking about palliative care helps physicians address not only the physical pain at the end of life, but also the emotional suffering.”

Physicians enrolling in the new University of Washington Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program must have completed a residency.

As part of the training, the fellows will work in a variety of settings including a hospital, hospice, palliative care clinic and a long-term care facility, such as a nursing home.

Providence is providing funding to help launch and sustain the UW program. The first physician began training in the program in July 2009. Four others will begin the intensive year-long program in July 2010.

To learn more:

• Visit the Webs site of Providence Hospice of Seattle.
• Visit the Web site of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care.

Other resources:

• Washington State Living Will Registry: www.doh.wa.gov/livingwill
• AHRQ: Advance Care Planning: Preferences for Care at the End of Life
• American Bar Association’s Commission on Law & Aging: Consumer’s Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning
• Aging with Dignity: Five Wishes
• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization: Caring Connections
• AARP: Advance Directives – Planning for the Future
• AARP: Talking about your final wishes
• National Long-term Care Ombudsman Resource Center: Helpful Contacts
• Washington State Hospice and Palliative Care Organization: www.wshpco.org

Tags: End-of-Life Care, Hospice, Palliative Care

Category: Provider News