Determinants of medical students’ perceived preparation to perform end-of-life care, quality of end-of-life care education, and attitudes toward end-of-life care.

Synopsis:

This is an important article and one that is close to home for me.  Working in palliative care and living with two medical students (one first year and one second year) who are gaining exposure to palliative medicine in their curricula; I often wonder how the information they are learning will stick with them as they progress into their clinical work.  At the University of Vermont, where these two students attend, there was a “Palliative Care Week” during which a different theme was discussed by individuals and panels each day.  The feedback on this type of experience was extremely positive.
Abstract:  Medical students’ learning about end-of-life care can be categorized into three learning modalities: formal curriculum, taught in lectures; informal curriculum, conveyed through clinical experiences; and “hidden curriculum,” inferred from behaviors and implicit in medical culture. In this study, we evaluated associations between survey items assessing these learning modalities and students’ perceptions of their preparation, quality of education, and attitudes toward end-of-life care…

Source:

Journal of Palliative Medicine

Vol/Page/Date:

J Palliat Med. 2010 Mar;13(3):233-4.

Resource Type:

Journal Article

Author/Source:

Billings ME et al