Palliative Care Training for Physician Assistants

What Every Physician Assistant Needs to Know About Palliative Care

Physician assistants (PAs) provide life-saving diagnostic and therapeutic care, often in primary care settings, leading patient-centered medical teams or in close association with other members of a patient’s healthcare team. As more and more patients seeking care are presenting with serious or chronic illness, every physician assistant needs to be equipped with a basic set of tools for assisting patients and families through these stressors. Generalist or basic palliative care skills can … and should … be integrated into every physician assistant’s practice.

Palliative care is specialized care, an extra level of support, for people with serious or chronic illnesses and their families. Appropriate from point of diagnosis onward, it focuses on relieving the symptoms and stress of a serious illness, going hand-in-hand with curative treatment and improving quality of life for both the patient and their family.

CME Credits

The Doctors Company designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of The Doctors Company and California State University Shiley Institute for Palliative Care. The Doctors Company is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Register for the brochure and join the interest list for this course by clicking HERE to sign up.

Despite the growing recognition of the value of palliative care, the majority of healthcare practitioners have insufficient training to provide a basic level of palliative care to their patients. With our aging population and a shortage of expert palliative care practitioners, there will never be enough specialists to provide all the palliative care needed. This is why basic palliative care skills should incorporated into every PA’s “toolkit” and every PA student’s knowledge base.

What Every Physician Assistant Needs to Know about Palliative Care is a one-hour, fully online course that provides a comprehensive overview of palliative care principles, models of care and skills. This self-paced course provides physician assistants with guidance on how to deliver bad news, conduct an advance care planning discussion, and assess the need for a referral to expert-level palliative care, and more.

Whether your organization has a dedicated palliative care team, contracts with another organization to offer palliative care, or you are considering either starting a palliative care program or integrating the principles of palliative care into your practice, this course provides an educational foundation. What Every Physician Assistant Needs to Know about Palliative Care will help you understand the benefits of palliative care, how it is different from usual care and hospice, and assess the need for expert-level palliative care.

This Course is Ideal For

• Physician assistants, working in any care setting and with any patient population
• PA students and faculty who need a standardized comprehensive overview of palliative care principles, models of care and skills

Modules in the What Every series are approximately one hour in length and provide a discipline-specific introduction to palliative care. These courses are designed to create an awareness of palliative care principles and establish a common understanding across the organization.

Fast Facts

Begins:	Immediately upon registration
Is taught:	Completely online and is available 24/7
Offers:	Continuing Education Hours – 1, CA BRN and BBS approved provider
Costs:	$49 per student
Requires:	Computing skills sufficient to complete graduate work, access to a computer with an Internet connection.
Is ideal for:	Physician assistants working in any care setting and with any patient population; physician assistant students
Provides:	A comprehensive overview of palliative care
Cancellation Policy:	There are no refunds on our self-paced courses

Course Information

Program Objectives/Content

What Every Physician Assistant Needs to Know about Palliative Care includes case scenarios, multi-media content, extensive resources and multiple tools to enrich the online learning experience. This course is one of a series of courses designed to teach the entire organization about palliative care. Learn more about the What Every… Needs to Know About Palliative Care series and maximize your investment in palliative care.

Learning Objectives

The course walks practitioners through a comprehensive overview of palliative care, focusing on principles of palliative care, the palliative care team, models of palliative care, delivery of palliative care, settings of care, communication, and helping patients access palliative care.

At the conclusion of the What Every Physician Assistant Needs to Know about Palliative Care course, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate among “usual” care, palliative care and hospice care
• Identify the role of each member of the palliative care team and the benefits of interdisciplinary care
• Describe unique elements of the palliative care delivery process
• Recognize the value of palliative care in specific care settings
• Conduct an advance care planning conversation
• Assess and identify patients who would benefit from palliative care

Course Outline

The program is comprised of the following content areas:

1. Knowledge of Palliative Care
   1. Usual care, palliative care, hospice care core principles
   2. Funding for palliative care
   3. The palliative care continuum
   4. Core principles of palliative care
   5. Benefits of palliative care
   6. Models of palliative care
2. The Palliative Care Team
   1. Members
   2. Team member duties
   3. A closer look at the core team
3. Delivery of Care
   1. Goals of care
   2. Care coordination
4. Settings of Care
   1. Benefits of palliative care
5. Communication
   1. Advance care planning
      1. Documents/forms
      2. Conversations
6. Increasing timely access to quality palliative care
   1. Palliative care triggers
   2. Making a palliative care referral

Course Authors

• Nadya E. Dimitrov PAC, DPM

• Karl Steinberg, MD, CMD

• Kathy Brandt, MS

In collaboration with:

• Carol Lovci, RN, MSN
• Monique Parrish, DrPH, MPH, LCSW
• Sue Wintz, MDiv, BCC

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Course Information

For patients and your organi­zation to get the full benefits of palliative care, EVERYONE needs to understand what it is, how and when to refer, and how to integrate its fundamentals into your practice. Learn more about the entire “What Every… Needs to Know About Palliative Care” here. Other courses available:

What Every Physician Needs to Know About Palliative Care

What Every Nurse Needs to Know About Palliative Care

What Every Social Worker Needs to Know About Palliative Care

What Every Chaplain Needs to Know About Palliative Care

What Every Health Professional Needs to Know About Palliative Care

What Every APRN Needs to Know About Palliative Care