As a nurse, nurse practitioner, physician, social worker, counsellor or health care assistant, if you are working with people who are affected by serious illness, there are some fundamental core competencies that you should bring to your practice. But where to find the right educational resources?
“Looking around for educational resources for palliative care competencies, there was no single course or module that addressed all the palliative care core competencies,” says Kathleen Yue, BCCPC’s Director of Strategic Initiatives. “To begin, we identified eight areas of competencies (called domains) and then got started creating educational materials.”
“We’re calling the module series Strengthen Your Core! Palliative Core Competencies.”
An unexpected approach
The first domain to be developed into a test module was Domain 4: Comfort and Quality of Life (to see all of the domains go to page 11-12 here). The design is unexpected for clinical education: it’s interactive, engaging and uses comic book imagery.
The module introduces learners to BCCPC’s comprehensive Symptom Management Guidelines, and give them the opportunity to practice applying them to a clinical scenario. (To learn more about Katie Green, who spearheaded the development, click here.)
Our test groups gave overwhelmingly positive feedback about the look and feel of this module, including the diverse characters and interdisciplinary team meeting at the end, where each discipline shares what they observed and have contributed to the care plan. They also appreciated how the scenario encompassed a holistic perspective, the issues the client were facing were psychosocial as well as physical.
TAKE A TEST DRIVE
The first module has been uploaded to the Learning Hub, and you can find it there by searching “Strengthen Your Core”. If you don’t have a health authority email address, you can access the module by creating a guest account. We’d love your feedback on this module.
Over the next three months, module development for the remaining seven domains continues. If you are a clinician in any of the disciplines represented in the domains and you’d like to give feedback on our test versions, please contact Kathleen kyue@bc-cpc.ca.
