PALLIATIVE CARE RESOURCE & TRAINING CENTER

The founded in 2001 by OSI (New York) Poznan's Palliative Care Resource & Training Center funded mainly by the OSI (G. Soros Foundation) is providing facilities for theoretical and practical training for palliative care professionals from Poland and other countries of the region.

It serves as a source of information and advice (both written and audiovisual, but also by means of on-line contact)

Detailed program of the education center

The tasks of Palliative Care Resource and Training Center:

1. theoretical and practical training in palliative care/medicine complying with the programs accepted by the Ministry of Health - basic, advanced, qualifying, specialization, attestation courses.
2. Basic and advanced courses English language courses in thanatology, palliative care/medicine combined with practical training (2 weeks) for trainees from Eastern and Central Europe.
3. Training for physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, chaplains, animators/organizers of palliative/hospice care and volunteers.

In spite of the educational role, the center is meant to play an important role as a source of information and advice in organization, legal issues and fundraising in palliative and hospice care/cancer pain management; it is also supposed to serve as a means of communication and the exchange of information among local and international palliative care organizations and associations.
An on-line newsletter is issued on a regular basis by Central Europe Palliative Care Task Force (in English)..
All are available at ECEPT website (http://www.oncology.am.poznan.pl/ecept ).

Trainings
The "package" of 2 weeks hands-on training in interdisciplinary palliative care at Hospice "Palium" in Poznan setting of Palliative Medicine Chair and Department of Poznan . Marcinkowski Univeristy of Medical Sciences in cooperation with Oxford International Centre for Palliative Care - WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care at Oxford University and Rev Dutkiewicz Hospice Gdansk, St Lasarius Hospice Krakow and Palliative Care Down Silesia Unit in Wroclaw- offering training in variety of PC forms: pain clinic, 24-hours per day and 7 days a week accessible home care, inpatient ward, hostel for children/adolescents, day care center, lymphoedema clinic and bereavement service, using not only physicians as teachers, but also nurses qualified in PC, psychologists, social workers.

Activities
Activities are performed as lectures, seminars and workshops, using wide range of audiovisual aids, extensive library of books and video tapes and reading room. Stimuli for self-education are within the interest of the program.

Participants
Candidates for training are supposed to apply to:

Ms Malgorzata Stanczyk ECEPT CEO and PC Resource & Training Center Co-ordinator
e-mail: mmstanczyk@am.poznan.pl
mmstanczyk@amp.edu.pl
website:
http://www.oncology.am.poznan.pl/ecept
HOSPICE PALLIUM Os Rusa 25 A
61-245 Poznan
tel/fax +48 61 8769869

Candidates are accepted after presenting:

• Curriculum vitae
• Involvement in palliative care (care for terminally ill patients)
Certificate of consent from the workplace
• Certificate of fluency in English (foreign candidates) - a recommendation from ECEPT representative is sufficient

Topics of training

• Problems of multidimensional suffering of people inflicted with progressive life-threatening diseases, suffering of their families.
• Tasks and aims of palliative/hospice care
• Cancer pain management (assessment and therapy)
• Symptom management (assessment and therapy)
• Epidemiology and selected clinical problems in progressive life-threatening diseases
• Clinical problems in therapy of concomitant diseases
• Emergencies in palliative care
• Palliative radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormonotherapy and surgery
• Basics of geriatrics
• Pharmacotherapy in palliative medicine
• Basics of thanatology
• Organization of palliative/hospice care in the world and in Poland
• The role of non-profit organizations/associations in palliative/hospice care
• Legal issues in palliative care (organization, national policy, opioid availability,education)
• Fundraising
• Standards of care
• Education in palliative care/medicine
• Communication with the patient, with the family, within the multidisciplinary team
• Quality of life, quality of care
• Ethical issues in palliative care
• Body image changes, psychosexual issues in palliative care
• Psychological and social needs of the patients and their families
• Spiritual and existential suffering, spiritual care
• End-of-life care
• Supportive care for the families
• Burnout syndrome
• Documentation and monitoring of care, audit
• Pediatric palliative care