Palliative Care Essentials

Clinical reasoning and examination

Video course

by Sabrina Ribeiro, MD PhD

Do you struggle to manage the pain of your patients with chronic life-threatening conditions? Do you avoid those tough conversations about end-of-life care or advanced planning? After attending this course, you will be able to identify and treat patients in need of palliative care. You will gain confidence in managing symptoms, discussing prognosis, and exploring values and goals of care.

2h 57m

6 Quizzes

4 CME

What’s in it for you?

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After completing this course, you will be able to

Identify patients with advanced diseases and in need of palliative care.
Recognize and explain the benefits of early palliative care.
Clarify common misconceptions about palliative care.
Recognize disease trajectories and introduce end-of-life decisions early in the course of disease.
Improve the ability to establish a prognosis, based on simple questions and scale.
Assess functional status to create more accurate and robust prognoses.
Use communication techniques to deliver bad news effectively and compassionately.
Assess your patient’s goals and priorities and engage them in shared decision-making.
Recognize refractory disease and avoid futile and potentially inappropriate treatments.
Identify and treat common symptoms such as pain and dyspnea.
Define refractory symptoms and initiate palliative sedation.
Make decisions regarding withholding or withdrawing potentially inappropriate treatments.

What's inside

Free

Chapter 1

Introduction to palliative care

What is palliative care? In this chapter, we'll break down common misconceptions and address ethical considerations to determine which patients are ideal candidates for palliation.

7 lessons

23m

Introduction to palliative care intro

Defining palliative care

Addressing common misconceptions

Discussing the benefits of palliative care

Identifying candidates for palliative care

Addressing access to care and patient refusal

Clarifying ethical aspects of palliative care

Introduction to palliative care quiz

Quiz

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Chapter 2

Palliative care for special populations

This chapter focuses on assessing disease trajectory in patients with chronic or advanced illness and neurological conditions in order to determine timing and treatment goals of palliative care.

8 lessons

30m

Palliative care for special populations intro

Creating individual treatment plans

Caring for patients with cancer

Caring for patients with organ failure

Caring for patients with dementia

Caring for older patients

Caring for patients with neurocritical illness

Caring for patients in the LGBTQ+ community

Palliative care for special populations quiz

Quiz

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Chapter 3

Shared decision-making and advance care planning

How do you know if your patient has decision-making capacity? Is a DNR necessary? In this chapter, we discuss determining goals of care and planning for the future.

7 lessons

25m

Shared decision-making and advance care planning intro

Exploring shared decision-making

Assessing decision-making capacity

Discussing outpatient care goals

Creating inpatient care goals

Documenting goals of care

Witholding or withdrawing treatments

Shared decision-making and advance care planning quiz

Quiz

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Chapter 4

Bedside manner and communication

This chapter addresses how to handle tough situations, such as delivering bad news, addressing conflict, and how to best connect with your patient under a variety of circumstances.

7 lessons

27m

Bedside manner and communication intro

Addressing communication basics

Connecting with your patients

Delivering bad news

Communicating remotely

Addressing conflict

Implementing family conferences

Bedside manner and communication quiz

Quiz

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Chapter 5

Symptom management

Symptom management can greatly increase a patient's quality of life. This chapter discusses pain control as well as alleviation of other common symptoms in palliative patients.

9 lessons

39m

Symptom management intro

Evaluating pain and other symptoms

Treating pain with opioids

Treating pain with non-opioids

Managing dyspnea

Managing nausea and vomiting

Managing constipation

Managing delirium and agitation

Managing depression and anxiety

Symptom management quiz

Quiz

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Chapter 6

End-of-life considerations

This chapter shares how to recognize end-of-life signs, how to administer palliative sedation and other comfort measures, and how to proceed once the patient is deceased.

10 lessons

34m

End-of-life considerations intro

Recognizing when a patient is in their final days and hours

Using pharmacologic interventions

Using nonpharmacologic interventions

Deprescribing futile medications

Planning and preparing palliative sedation

Preparing to die at home

Caring for the deceased

Communicating death

End-of-life considerations quiz

Quiz

Palliative Care Essentials outro

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Teachers of this course

Sabrina Ribeiro, MD PhD

Sabrina is a board-certified intensive care, emergency, and palliative care specialist who works as an Intensivist at the Emergency Critical Care Unit, Hospital das Clinicas, São Paulo. She is also a professor of Palliative Care for the Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira (AMIB), teaching courses in several states in Brazil.

Teacher Profile

Medmastery

Nora Drenaline

Clinical reasoning and examination

Claim your certificate

All members receive a certificate for completing this course. For Pro members, the certificate comes with 4 CME credits.

CME accredited

All our courses and workshops are fully CME accredited. We provide USA AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ and European CME credits (ECMEC®s). Pro members can download their CME certificates upon successful completion of activities. Want to transfer these credits to your national system? No problem.

Learn how this works

CME at its best

Award-winning teaching method

Winner of the Comenius EduMedia Medal
For outstanding digital education—Berlin 2013
Highly commended by the British Medical Association
Awarded in the digital category of the BMA Book Awards—London 2017
Winner of the Comenius EduMedia Seal
For outstanding digital education—Berlin 2017
Internationally accredited
CME accredited in the USA and EU with mutual recognition agreements in most other countries.
Trusted institutional partner
Used by residency programs and universities around the world to train their clinicians and students.
Top-rated by our learners
Rated excellent by hundreds of users on Trustpilot, an independent reviewing platform.

What’s in it for you?

Master the most important skills

Learn any skill in under 5 hours

Save time and money

After completing this course, you will be able to

What's inside

Introduction to palliative care

Palliative care for special populations

Shared decision-making and advance care planning

Bedside manner and communication

Symptom management

End-of-life considerations

Claim your certificate

CME accredited

Winner of the Comenius EduMedia Medal

Highly commended by the British Medical Association

Winner of the Comenius EduMedia Seal

Internationally accredited

Trusted institutional partner

Top-rated by our learners