Are family medicine residents adequately trained to deliver palliative care?
Abstract
Objective To explore educational factors that influence family medicine residents’ (FMRs’) intentions to offer palliative care and palliative care home visits to patients.
Design Qualitative descriptive study.
Setting A Canadian, urban, specialized palliative care centre.
Participants First-year (n = 9) and second-year (n = 6) FMRs.
Methods Semistructured interviews were conducted with FMRs following a 4-week palliative care rotation. Questions focused on participant experiences during the rotation and perceptions about their roles as family physicians in the delivery of palliative care and home visits. Participant responses were analyzed to summarize and interpret patterns related to their educational experience during their rotation.
Main findings Four interrelated themes were identified that described this experience: foundational skill development owing to training in a specialized setting; additional need for education and support; unaddressed gaps in pragmatic skills; and uncertainty about family physicians’ role in palliative care.
Conclusion Residents described experiences that both supported and inadvertently discouraged them from considering future engagement in palliative care. Reassuringly, residents were also able to underscore opportunities for improvement in palliative care education.
- Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
- No related articles found.
Cited By...
- Family medicine residents perspectives on curricular messaging surrounding enhanced skills fellowship programs
- Comprehensive practice: Normative definition across 3 generations of alumni from a single family practice program, 1985 to 2012
- Ou sen va la medecine familiale?
- Where is family medicine heading?