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Medical education on end-of-life care reviewed

In a unique event, representatives of the four medical schools in the state of Georgia came together to jointly review the state of medical education on end-of-life care. Faculty, residents, and medical student representatives from the medical schools of Emory University, Medical College of Georgia, Mercer University, and Morehouse School of Medicine met at the Loudermilk Conference Center in Atlanta on April 23, 2001.

In preparation for the conference, Kathy Kinlaw designed surveys for students, residents and faculty to determine their perceptions of where end-of-life care was currently being addressed in the medical school curriculum and how effective these current commitments were. The survey also asked each respondent to indicate how well prepared the respondent and colleagues were in several key areas of end-of-life care (e.g., breaking bad news, pain assessment and management, discussing do not resuscitate decisions). Survey results from each school were presented at the meeting.

The four medical schools have agreed to participate in a curriculum assessment for end-of-life care and to continue to work together on sharing curricular information with the hope of developing teaching models that could be utilized in each school.

[ Posted by Kathy Kinlaw at September 1, 2002 11:38 AM | More HCECG articles ]

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