End-of-Life Care Online Curriculum

The SFDC facilitator-training course in End-of-Life Care was offered from 2000-2002. We released an innovative Internet version of the core curriculum from that course, in partnership with Growth House. The free Internet version of the curriculum lets you download or view complete Power Point presentations with integrated teachers' notes, HTML tutorials, and an online handbook. 

Presentation topics include: Overview of Death and Dying in the U.S.A, Communicating with Patients and Families, Making Difficult Decisions, Pain Management, Non-Pain Symptom Management, Venues and Systems of Care, Psychiatric Issues & Spirituality, and Instituting Change.

The comprehensive "Teacher's Handbook" provides background information, commentary on education in end-of-life care, explanation of instructional methods and potential challenges in teaching each topic, supplementary instructional materials, a self-rating exercise, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Individual topics are useful for staff training workshops, in-service presentations, and formal classroom training. The modular nature of the curriculum makes it easy to use parts of the material in different combinations.

The web version includes selected extracts from the companion book, "Palliative Care Perspectives" by James Hallenbeck, MD. The book provides additional detail that complements the higher-level teaching points included in the PowerPoint slides.

The Internet version of the curriculum was developed by James Hallenbeck, MD; Sara Katz, PhD and Georgette Stratos, PhD with input from numerous experts the palliative care field, and editing and research assistance from Jane Mount.