CARE-7 Overview
Thinking about communication as a skill was really helpful to me. Before, I might have thought ‘I’m fine’ and just plateau, but now I want to be the person getting better and better.
– Victor Ayeni, Perelman School of Medicine, Class of ’24
Why Palliative Care?
Palliative care (PC) is a medical specialty that provides holistic care for patients with serious illness and their caregivers. Such care incorporates pain and symptom management, psychosocial and spiritual support, and communication around medical decisions to improve patients’ quality of life.
Given the growing emphasis on patient-centered care, the increasing number of older Americans, and the shortage of PC specialists, the need for enhanced PC education in overall medical curricula has become essential. Expanded PC training not only helps medical school graduates better care for patients nearing the end of life, but also helps them better connect with and care for the broader patient population.
In addition to benefiting patients and the healthcare system, PC education benefits students in a variety of ways. It improves their ability to establish rapport and communicate effectively, reconnects them with the reasons they went into medicine, and helps them cultivate important emotional skills like self-reflection and empathy.
CARE + 7 Overarching Goals
Communication. Attention. Responsiveness. Empathy.
- Caring for patients throughout the disease process through knowledge of specialty palliative and hospice care.
- Effective communication that incorporates the patient's values, cultural context, and goals.
- Consideration of psychosocial and spiritual distress and bereavement in the care of seriously ill patients and their families.
- Connecting with one's own emotional response to patients with serious illness.
- Comprehensive pain management for patients with serious illness.
- Providing comfort through excellent symptom management.
- Care of patients at the end of life.