Education in palliative care–Series introduction

This series draws on contributions from leaders in the field of palliative care, particularly those working on educating others in palliative care provision.

Throughout the world, there is a recognition of the critical importance of sharing experience and learning in our field so that palliative care workers have the knowledge and skills to provide quality palliative care to patients and their families.

There are many channels for education and knowledge sharing, from websites such as Pallimed, All Things Palliative and our own ehospice, to higher education institutions providing bachelors, Masters and PhD programmes in palliative care.

In this series, ehospice has invited a group of palliative care educators and facilitators of learning, to share their diverse experiences of promoting learning in the field.

Contributions to this series include the following:

David Oliviere and Dion Bachmann, from St Christopher’s hospice in London, remind us that the purpose of palliative care education is to ‘mend the gap’ between theory and practice, and point to the wealth of experience being built up in the clinical practice of palliative care that can be drawn upon as a solid foundation for education.

Dr Liz Gwyther, senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town, gives us a personal insight of her journey to setting up the first palliative care Masters programme in Africa, as well as the inclusion of palliative care education in the undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Cape Town.

Breda Trimble speaks to ehospice about her work as a nurse tutor at Milford Care Centre in Ireland, including her involvement in the provision of the European Certificate in Essential Palliative Care.

We hope that you enjoy this series and are able to use some of the information contained in the articles to enhance your own education or to strengthen the education objectives of your organisation.

If you would like to share your thoughts or experience of education in palliative care, please write to me at k.jackson@ehospice.com.