Links—Clinical and Educational Resources/Palliative Care Programs

1. announce educational programs and training opportunities in pain and palliative medicine for physicians, nurses, and other health care providers.

2. post pain assessment tools and palliative care curricula suitable for downloading including The Network Project Teaching Modules

3. announce upcoming educational conferences, lectures, meetings, and other important events in palliative and end of life care

4. provide linkage to other important web sites in the international palliative care community

Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC)
http://www.capc.org
CAPC exists to help institutions build clinical palliative care programs in the US. They have many resources to assist individuals beginning a hospital or nursing home based palliative care program.

Clinical Management of Neuropathic Pain: A Problem-Based, Interactive Module
http://www.stoppain.org/for_professionals/interactive_module/elearn.html
This CME-accredited, innovative online learning environment uses state-of-the-art technology to demonstrate the assessment of a patient with neuropathic pain and the development of a multimodal therapeutic strategy. CONTACT: Care at Beth Israel Medical Center Dept. of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care

Contemplative End of Life Care Program at Naropa University www.naropa.edu/cotemplativecare/

End-of-life care training that brings together the ancient wisdom of the Buddhist

tradition as presented in Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

with the knowledge, skills and best practices of hospice and palliative care -

presented by Rigpa's Spiritual Care Program and Naropa University's School

of Extended Studies. CEUs for nurses, social workers and therapists are available.

CMEs for physicians are also available.

Curriculum Guidelines for Family Practice Residents - End of Life Care
http://www.aafp.org/eduguide.xml
Provided by the American Academy of Physicians, these guidelines have been endorsed by the American Academy of Family Physicians and were developed in cooperation with the Association of Departments of Family Medicine, the Association of Family Practice Residency Directors and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.

David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages
http://www.trauma-pages.com/index.htm
Extensive resource with information on psychological trauma and its treatment. Includes numerous journal articles as well as research aids and links to trauma sites and other mental health sites. Some general bereavement and loss information is also available.

Distance Education Program
http://www.hcs.gmcc.ab.ca/palliative/
The Palliative Care Post Diploma Certificate Program at Grant MacEwan Community College is designed to provide professional health caregivers the necessary knowledge and skills for coordinating and providing quality care for the terminally ill in either an institutional or home care setting.

Edmonton Palliative Care Program
http://www.palliative.org
From the University of Alberta, Department of Oncology, extensive clinical information, patient materials, and a pilot Web-based training course, PallCare EdNet

EPEC: Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care
http://www.epec.net
The EPEC Project, supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is an ambitious, 2-year initiative designed to educate physicians across the United States on the essential clinical competencies in end of life care. The EPEC curriculum has been designed with input from nationally respected experts in the field and feedback from participants in early training conferences. It combines didactic sessions, videotape presentations, interactive discussions, and practical exercises.

Ethics in Medicine - University of Washington School of Medicine
http://eduserv.hscer.washington.edu/bioethics/toc.html
Excellent site for ethics educators-contains curriculum outlines for medical school and postgraduate physician education, content outlines, references, case discussions, and more

Ethics OSCE
http://wings.buffalo.edu/bioethics/osce.html
Standardized Patient Scenarios for Teaching and Evaluating Bioethics; from the University of Toronto Joint Center for Bioethics

Geriatric Quick Consult
http://www.virginiageriatrics.org/consult/index.html

Geriatric Quick Consult is a primer on acute geriatric care that will be linked to the clinical computing system of the VCU Health System. It will give clinicians direct access to focused information about care of acutely ill older patients and a link to request in-person consultation.

All of the Quick Consult topics will be completed by Spring of 2003.

Hospice Referral and Care: Practical Guidance for Clinicians

http://www.medscape.com/viewprogram/3345

MedScape

University of Hawaii - Center on Aging

http://www.hawaii.edu/aging/

5 booklets on end-of-life care, designed to help family caregivers who are caring for a loved one facing the end-of- life. The booklets, funded by a grant from the
Administration on Aging, can be downloaded from our website.

They are:

1. Advance Care Planning: Making Choices Known
2. Planning Ahead: Funeral and Memorial Services
3. Preparing to Say Good-bye: Care for the Dying
4. What To Do When Death Occurs: What to Do When a Love One Dies
5. Help for the Bereaved: The Healing Journey

Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care
http://www.ippcweb.org/index.asp
Children with life-threatening conditions face many hurdles. So do their families. The Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care (IPPC - pronounced "ipsee"), represents a consortium of organizations joining forces to improve the care and the quality of life of these children and their families.

International Center for the Integration of Health & Spirituality
http://www.nihr.org/index.cfm
Organization's goal is to encourage professional collaboration to advance the understanding of health and spirituality through educational programs and research. Site offers long articles on various topics as well as a range of contact information and a speakers bureau section.

Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care Program Toolkit
http://www.growthhouse.org/palliative/
We have a new online version of the Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care Program Toolkit available that gives you a step-by-step guide on how you can create an innovative outpatient palliative care program within your own healthcare institution.

Medical Matrix
http://www.medmatrix.org
Ranked, peer-reviewed, annotated, updated clincial medicine resources.

Medscape
http://www.medscape.com
MEDLINE (Optimized for Physicians)
200+ Free CME Courses
25 Medical Specialty Sites
100+ Medical Journals
Conference Coverage
Daily Medical News

National Cancer Institute
http://rex.nci.nih.gov
The NCI is the largest component of the National Institutes of Health. It coordinates a national research program on cancer cause and prevention, detection and diagnosis, and treatment. It provides information about cancer to patients, the public, and health professionals.

NIH's Bioethics Resources on the Web
http://www.nih.gov/sigs/bioethics/endoflife.html
The NIH Office of Extramural Research, in collaboration with the NIH Bioethics Interest Group, has launched "NIH's Bioethics Resources on the Web". The site is designed to facilitate research, scholarly activities, and training. It provides information about bioethics initiatives at NIH institutes and centers, the federal Office for Protection from Research Risks, and other government offices.

Normal and Abnormal EKGs and Heart Sounds
http://bioscience.org/atlases/heart/
Audio and Visual practice site!

Oregon Health Sciences University Center for Ethics in Health Care
http://www.ohsu.edu/ethics/
The Center for Ethics in Health Care combines the perspectives of health professionals, patients, and families to improve teaching, research, and clinical consultation about ethical issues in patient care and health policy.

Palliative Care Education Resource Team
http://www.swedishmedical.org/PERT.htm
The PERT Program curriculum is designed to increase the knowledge, skills, and confidence of nursing home staff in providing end-of-life care. This section of the PERT Program website provides information about the curriculum and how to participate.

Palliative Care Handbook
http://albertapalliative.net/APN/PCHB/01_PrinciplesOfDecision.html
This book is intended as an educational resource to aid primary care practitioners in Alberta to care for their palliative patients. In order to assist regions to use a common language in describing palliative care concepts and programs/services, the PCNI developed a comprehensive patient care resource book to promote a similar knowledge of palliative care treatment options throughout the province. As identified by many primary care physicians throughout the regions, it was felt that a book with concise, practical step-by-step suggestions regarding management strategies of the more common clinical problems was needed. In an attempt to keep this resource practical and concise, detailed debate regarding more controversial issues was minimized.

Palliative Medicine Resources on the Internet
http://www.smbs.buffalo.edu/med/intmed/pall.html
This site from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Science provides helpful clinical and education weblinks, including access to their General Internal Medicine's online course, Palliative Medicine, MED-880.

Patient Education and Caring: End-of-Life (PEACE) Series
http://www.acponline.org/ethics/patient_education.htm
FREE, downloadable pamphlets available from American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine website for patients regarding palliative care and hospice.

Pediatric Pain
http://is.dal.ca/~pedpain/pedpain.html
This site is dedicated to pain management in children. It offers subscriptions to its newsletter and listserv as well as abstracts of various publications and articles. Assessment tools for professionals and researchers working on children's pain issues are also available. Site offers published sourcebook and some links.

PERT

http://www.swedishmedical.org/pert 

PERT (Palliative Care Education Resource Team) is an educational program developed by the Pain Research Department at Swedish Medical Center, in Seattle, Washington through a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The goal of the PERT Program is to enhance end-of-life care in long-term care facilities. To achieve this goal, the PERT Program has developed a comprehensive curriculum of educational materials and resources, aimed at enhancing the skills of nurses and nursing assistants who provide end-of-life care. The educational materials are freely available from the Web site:

Primer on Critical Care for Patients and Their Families
http://www.thoracic.org/assemblies/cc/ccprimer/mainframe2.html
American Thoracic Society Critical Care has developed a website that offers a series of short explanations of illnesses and procedures that are commonly seen in the Intensive Care Unit. The Website has many end-of-life and critical care issues.

Quality of Life - Assessment in Medicine Internet Resources
http://www.qlmed.org/url.htm
Public domain quality of life instruments database that includes: - assessment instruments - major organizations and research groups - diseases, symptoms and special populations - methodology - bibliographic research - top ten journals for the number of publications on quality of life - assessment in medicine - health directories

The Connecticut Hospice
http://www.hospice.com
The Connecticut Hospice inaugurated hospice care in America in 1974 and continues to addresses physical, spiritual, social, and emotional needs of patients with advanced irreversible illness, and their families. Such care is provided regardless of diagnosis and as long as the Hospice level of care is needed by the patients.

The Surgeon and Palliative Care
http://www.facs.org/palliativecare/
Includes an annotated bibliography and pathway to Palliative Care By The Surgeon articles in PDF format.

Toolkit of Instruments to Measure End of Life (TIME)
http://www.chcr.brown.edu/pcoc/toolkit.htm
An authoritative bibilography of instruments to measure the quality of care and quality of life for dying patients and their families assembled With funding from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Toolkit instruments are available at no charge.

Topics in Pain Management: A Slide Compendium
http://www.stoppain.org/for_professionals/compendium/
This series consists of annotated, downloadable PowerPoint® modules for professionals interested in an integrated approach to pain management. The slide kit is now available for use in didactic presentations on pain-related issues. The slide compendium has been developed by the Institute for Education and Research in Pain and Palliative Care, a division of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Support for the compendium was provided by an unrestricted educational grant from Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

UPMC Palliative Care Program
http://www.upmc.edu/palliativecare/
The UPMC Palliative Care Program site includes a newsletter, resource links, and a case of the week. The program offers services in (1) pain and symptom management; (2) education for residents, nurses, and other health care providers; and (3) assistance for providers and family members in making complicated end-of-life decisions, including the use of medical technology, living wills, and powers of attorney.

WHO Pain and Palliative Care Communications Program

http://www.WHOcancerpain.wisc.edu

The mission of the WHO Pain and Palliative Care Communications Program is to improve access to professional education resources in pain control and palliative care, and actively support the WHO Cancer Control Program; we publish Cancer Pain Release, the only WHO periodical on pain control and palliative care and a well recognized resource for professional education.