Palliative care education in Swiss undergraduate medical curricula: a case of too little, too early.
Palliative medicine education is an important strategy in ensuring that the needs of terminally ill patients are met. A review was conducted in 2007 of the undergraduate curricula of all five of Switzerland's medical schools to identify their palliative care-related content and characteristics. The average number of mandatory hours of palliative care education is 10.2 h (median 8 h; range 0-27 h), significantly short of the 40 h recommended by the European Palliative Care Association's Education Expert Group. The median time allocated to designated palliative care blocks is 3 h (range 0-8 h). Most of the education occurs before the clinical years, and there are no mandatory clinical rotations. Three schools offer optional clinical rotations but these are poorly attended (<10% of students). Although a number of domains are covered, ethics-related content predominates; 21 of a total of 51 obligatory hours (41%). Communication related to palliative care is largely limited to 'breaking bad news'. In two of the schools, the teaching is done primarily by palliative care physicians and nurses (70% or more of the teaching). In the others, it is done mostly by educators in other clinical specialties and ethics (approximately 90% of the teaching). These findings show significant deficiencies.
Pereira
J
J
Service de Soins Palliatifs, University of Lausanne, Lausanne; Service de Médecine Palliative, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. jose.pereira@chuv.ch
Pautex
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S
Cantin
B
B
Gudat
H
H
Zaugg
K
K
Eychmuller
S
S
Zulian
G
G
D003479:Curriculum / Q000592:standards*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D013557:Switzerland