Palliative Care Always

Internet Enduring Material Sponsored by the Stanford University School of Medicine. Presented by the Stanford Cancer Institute.

Course Description:

Palliative care can help ease suffering and improve wellbeing in people living with serious illness. Palliative Care Always is a case-based course designed to help us better understand and practice the principles of palliative medicine—communication, symptom and distress management, and addressing goals of care—in effort to improve quality of life for cancer patients and their families.

Palliative Care Always features presentations from a variety of Stanford palliative medicine clinicians as well as video scenes with a fictional patient experiencing colon cancer.

Release Date: November 16, 2019
Expiration Date: March 26, 2020  (ENROLLMENT ENDS Jan 28)
Estimated Time to Complete: 15 hours
CME Credits Offered: 15.0
Registration Fee: FREE

1. Describe the scope and role of palliative care as part of a patient and family care plan;
2. Define goals of care and advance care planning, communicate treatment decisions with patients and families on a regular basis, and document those goals and treatments;
3. Use empathy, active listening, and specialized communication protocols (e.g. Spikes and nurse) to effectively communicate with patients and their families;
4. Screen for and accurately assess common emotional, social and spiritual distress, physical symptoms (e.g. Pain, fatigue, nausea), and child adjustment issues, survivorship needs, and end of life adjustment;
5. Develop an interdisciplinary treatment plan to appropriately manage for cancer patients basic physical symptoms using medication and lifestyle modification and emotional, social, and spiritual distress;
6. Refer patients and their families to specialists as needed to support their psychosocial wellbeing;
7. Develop strategies to work with patients and their families to transition patients to hospice care; and
8. Develop a survivorship care plan with patients who have entered survivorship care to meet their long-term psychosocial and physical needs.

Cultural and Linguistic Competency
The planners and speakers of this CME activity have been encouraged to address cultural issues relevant to their topic area for the purpose of complying with California Assembly Bill 1195. Moreover, the Stanford University School of Medicine Multicultural Health Portal contains many useful cultural and linguistic competency tools including culture guides, language access information and pertinent state and federal laws.  You are encouraged to visit the Multicultural Health Portal: http://lane.stanford.edu/portals/cultural.html

Bibliography
For a complete list, please view the References/Bibliography page in the Course.

The Stanford University School of Medicine adheres to ACCME Criteria, Standards and Policies regarding industry support of continuing medical education.  

There are no relevant financial relationships with ACCME-defined commercial interests for anyone who was in control of the content of this activity.

Member Information

Role in activity

Nature of Relationship(s) / Name of Ineligible Company(s)

Ellen Brown, MD
Palliative Care Consultant

Faculty

Kelly Bugos, NP
Manager for the Center for Advanced Practice
Stanford Health Care (SHC)

Faculty

Sandy Chan, LCSW
Director, Palliative Medicine and Geriatrics
Stanford Hospital & Clinics

Faculty

Jan DeNofrio, PhD
Stanford University

Faculty

Joshua Cade Fronk, DO
Clinical Assistant Professor
SHC - Cancer Center

Faculty

Lynn E Hutton, LCSW
Post Masters Social Work Fellow
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Faculty

Lori Klein, JD, Rabbi
Director, Spiritual Care Service
Stanford Health Care

Faculty

Manuela M Kogon, MD
Stanford University

Faculty

Judy R Passaglia, CNS, RN, ACHPN
Stanford Health Care

Faculty

Kavitha Jennifer Ramchandran, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
SHC

Faculty

This activity received no commercial support.