RN Certificate in Palliative Care

CSU Shiley Haynes Institute for Palliative Care offers in-depth palliative care training for nurses working with seriously ill patients in all settings. Designed for busy nursing professionals, this convenient online certificate program provides the flexibility you need to accomplish your educational goals and advance your career.

Completely revised and updated!

With input from a Curricular Taskforce of palliative care experts, course instructors, and past students; course evaluations; and alumni surveys over 4 years, revisions include:

• Updated content to reflect state-of-the-art clinical practice and regulatory updates from CMS
• Expanded clinical tools, resources, and practical takeaways in downloadable “toolkit”
• Expanded/new content on communication strategies in the context of serious illness: advance care planning, goals of care; palliative care ethics; moral distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout; personal and organizational well-being; diversity, equity, and inclusion; telemedicine; disenfranchised and complicated grief, ambiguous loss, grief assessment
• New optional “live” sessions by Zoom with instructor, fellow students for Q&A, discussion, and feedback
• Additional Discussion Forum prompts, case studies, and topics to enrich student interaction and peer-to-peer learning; refreshed quiz and final exam questions to reinforce concepts

Palliative Care Education for Nurses

Nurses deliver compassionate, multifaceted care to patients and families from all walks of life.

Whether you are working in hospice and palliative care or another practice setting, this palliative care nursing course offers all the tools you’ll need to support vulnerable patients and their families. Learn about the trajectories of common illnesses, expert pain and symptom management strategies, how to address emotional suffering, and how to care for patients at the end of life. Although not a “prep” course for the Hospice and Palliative Nurse certification exam, this course is proven to help participants earn certification.

• Acquire effective skills to communicate with seriously ill patients, caregivers, and colleagues; conduct advance care planning; elicit goals of care
• Understand clinical presentations, disease trajectories, and prognostic indicators of advanced illness
• Explore evidence-based pain assessment and care planning that considers sensory, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, and spiritual components of pain
• Identify and evaluate pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment approaches to manage symptoms
• Understand ethical considerations in palliative care and the application of ethics to support patient and provider decision making
• Consider and sensitively address cultural differences and the needs of diverse populations

64 continuing education (CE) credits provided through California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) Extended Learning, accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and approved by the California Board of Registered Nurses, Provider #CEP11422

Students enrolling in this course should be an RN or BSN.

Cancellations may be made up to the day before the first day of the course; a refund will be issued minus an administrative fee of $35. No refunds are possible for withdrawals once the course starts.

Oxford Textbook of Palliative Care Nursing, 5th Edition, edited by Betty Ferrell and Judith Paice, Oxford University Press.

NCP Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, 4th edition; link provided to full text inside course