EDUCATION

This program equips health care professionals with the skills to have compassionate and effective conversations with patients, families, and caregivers facing serious illness. By focusing on person-centered values, goals, and wishes, these conversations help reduce confusion and ensure that care decisions align with what matters most to the individual. The training includes a self-learning module and a facilitated session, guiding professionals in the use of the Serious Illness Conversation Guide developed by Ariadne Labs and Pallium Canada.

Over the course of eight weeks, NSMHPCN Palliative Pain and Symptom Management Consultants (PPSMCs) will work with EPM learners to provide foundational knowledge and skills in pain assessment, management, and evaluation from a palliative care approach. The focus of the course is on the pharmacological management of pain, which can then be applied to practice.

This virtual course is designed to allow for self-reflection on our own experiences with grief, our inner and outer biases, and how they can impact us as friends, family members, peers and/or healthcare providers. Participants will explore contemporary grief theory, how to hold space for grieving people, and provide practical skills and knowledge on how to best support ourselves and others.

Taking a palliative approach to care improves the quality of care provided and enhances the overall well-being of the person with dementia and their family and caregivers.  However assessing and managing symptoms and ensuring the plan of care for someone living with dementia maintains their dignity and follows their wishes, goals, and values can be difficult when the disease reaches the stage where the person is not able to speak for themselves.