Additional SFDC Program: End-of-Life Care

The Stanford Faculty Development Center facilitator-training course in End-of-Life Care (ELC), held from 2000 to 2002, trained a total of 17 ELC facilitators. The 1-month training provided participants with background knowledge and seminar leadership skills required to deliver a series of 2-hour seminars to their colleagues and to residents at their home institutions. Topics included an Overview on Death and Dying in the U.S.A.; Pain Management; Communicating with Patients and Families; Making Difficult Decisions; Non-Pain Symptom Management; Venues and Systems of Care; and Psychiatric Issues and Spirituality.

The seminars were designed to enhance physicians' competence in providing end-of-life care, foster a commitment to improving care for the dying, and improve physicians' ability to teach about end-of-life care to medical trainees. Results of program evaluation showed:

  • Extremely high ratings for educational and clinical relevance of seminars
  • Significant increases in knowledge related to end-of-life care
  • Significant increases in confidence to perform palliative medicine skills
  • Significant increases in confidence to teach those skills to students and house staff
  • Increased positive attitudes re: palliative medicine

Facilitators trained at Stanford continue to teach the ELC seminars and to adapt the material to the needs of their institutions. Trained facilitators also serve as regional and national faculty development resources for end-of-life care.

The SFDC released an innovative online version of the teaching curriculum on end-of-life care, in partnership with Growth House, Inc.

Program Faculty (2000-02):
James Hallenbeck, MD; Sara Katz, PhD; Jon Fuller, MD; Steve Pantilat, MD; Michael Rabow, MD; and program alumni.
 

                    List of ELC Trained Facilitators

17 Institutions 17 Facilitators Year
Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA Jennifer Hughes 2002
Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH Richard Christie 2000
Highland Gen Hosp/Alameda Co Med Center, Oakland, CA Sheira Freedman 2001
Massachusetts Medical Society, Waltham, MA John Fromson 2000
Mount Sinai Medical School, City University of New York Cynthia Pan 2000
Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA Dennis Johnson 2000
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose, CA Gary Lee 2000
St. Mary's Hospital, San Francisco, CA Denis Bouvier 2001
Stanford University, Stanford, CA Annette Geisler 2002
The Chester County Hospital, West Chester, PA Robin Turner 2002
University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL Carol Griffin 2002
University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR A Reed Thompson 2000
University of Florida, Jacksonville, FL Gary Reisfield 2002
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI Emese Somogyi-Zalud 2001
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI Mary Wisely 2001
University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE William Minier 2001
University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, OK Jeffrey Alderman 2002