title: Medical students' palliative care education in a Latin American university: a three-year experience at Austral University in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The School of Medicine of Austral University incorporated palliative care as an elective in undergraduate medicine curriculum during 2010.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We analyzed the experience and results after 3 years of teaching palliative care. We compared students who chose palliative care as an elective subject (PC Group) with students who did not (Non-PC Group). We focused on the experience of contact with palliative care patients and self-perceived attitudes. Additionally, the impact produced by palliative care education in knowledge, self-perceived attitudes, and comfort was evaluated.
  
  
  METHODS
  All the students tested completed a questionnaire on their attitude when exposed to dying patients. Students in the PC Group completed an additional questionnaire to assess their level of knowledge and their self-perceived comfort when interacting with patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We tested 146 students. All students in the PC Group and 95.2% in the Non-PC Group considered that specific death issues ought to be part of the curriculum. Some students indicated that they could be present in a mandatory course. Before taking their elective, students in the PC Group confirmed a lack of technical training to understand palliative care patients, as did those students in the Non-PC Group. After taking a palliative care elective students expressed an improvement in self-perceived attitudes toward suffering and there was a significant increase (p<0.0001-0.0045) in knowledge. They also expressed an improvement in comfort levels in evaluation and treatment of pain. More than 95% of the students in the PC Group rated the experience as valuable and perceived the content as not available elsewhere in their training.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results show that palliative care education provides opportunities to improve attitudes not specific to this discipline: interprofessional collaboration, holistic care, patient-centered care, self-awareness, and humanism. We conclude that an exposure to palliative care improved student's perception about the complexities of dying patients and their care.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Palliative Medicine, Universidad Austral , Buenos Aires, Argentina .
authors.forename: Eduardo Mario
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Mutto
authors.forename: Sofía
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bunge
authors.forename: Ernesto
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vignaroli
authors.forename: Mariela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bertolino
authors.forename: Marcelo José
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Villar
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wenk
mesh_terms: D001118:Argentina; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires