• Charles F Von Gunten, Patricia B Mullan, Shawn Harrity, Joel Diamant, Edwin Heffernan, Tyson Ikeda, William L Roberts, and Faculty, Center for Pallative Study.
• Center for Palliative Studies, San Diego Hospice and Palliative Care, San Diego, CA 92103, USA. cvongunten@sdhospice.org
• J Cancer Educ. 2003 Jan 1;18(2):68-72.

BackgroundThe faculty of the Center for Palliative Studies teach residents from 5 different primary care residency training programs who rotate at San Diego Hospice: 3 in Internal Medicine, 2 in Family Medicine. Residents participate in the care of patients in the inpatient care setting and make joint home visits with physicians and other team members. A series of 4 lectures on end-of-life care is given on Tuesday mornings: management of pain, other symptoms, interdisciplinary roles of chaplains, social workers, nurses, and grief/bereavement are discussed. In addition, there is a Tuesday noon conference that follows a journal club format. Because of scheduling, residents from some programs are not able to attend all lectures and conferences.MethodsA 27-item self-assessment evaluation tool was developed for administration to residents before and after their experience. A total of 65 evaluations for residents rotating in academic year 1997-98 and 1998-1999 were collated and analyzed.ResultsWhen evaluated as a whole, residents noted significant improvements in their ability to assess and treat symptoms, to tell patient/family about the dying process and to care for dying patients at home (range in improvement from 26% to 67%, p < 0.05 using paired t-test). About half of the residents perceived that the content was not available elsewhere in their training.ConclusionWe conclude that a single hospice rotation can effectively contribute to resident education in multiple programs.

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