This specialty reflects the specialized needs of three specific high-risk populations with emphasis on ethnic and racial minorities including: adult and older adult patients and their families undergoing treatment for life-threatening illness; adult and older adult patients and families facing death; adult and older adult patients and families with chronic illness requiring quality of life interventions. Students will declare a population focus within the adult, gerontological, community health, or pediatric advanced practice nursing (nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist) concentrations and engage in the study of palliative care of these individuals.

The specific goals of the palliative care specialty are:

1. To educate advanced practice nursing students (nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists) in palliative care to provide culturally appropriate, sensitive health care
2. To increase the number of minority and disadvantaged nurses educated to provide this care
3. To improve access to expert, quality and comprehensive nursing care provided to seriously ill populations facing life-threatening illness.

The palliative care specialty is offered to students from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds through a number of routes to entry and program options. Find your pathway to entry.

SAMPLE CURRICULUM

The course of study for APN students at BCSON includes courses from the graduate core curriculum, the clinical core curriculum, and the specialty course curriculum. The curriculum provides foundation courses in nursing theory, social and economic issues in health care delivery, ethics, research, leadership, and regulatory factors in advanced practice nursing. The clinical core, taken by all APN students, provides the foundations for practice and includes health assessment, health promotion and disease prevention, assessment and management of common and complex conditions, pharmacology and pathophysiology. Specialty courses emphasize the importance of the family structure when caring for the patient and provides additional content necessary for the APN’s broad scope of practice.

The palliative care courses will incorporate three main components: theoretical concepts, clinical foundation courses, and the clinical practicum. The proposed curriculum will integrate course from the graduate core, clinical core and one specialty course from the adult/gerontological or community health core advanced practice curriculum. The curriculum was developed using the NONPF Curriculum Guidelines and Program Standards (NONPF, 1995), the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials of Master’s Education for Advanced Practice (AACN, 1996), and the End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC, 2003) standards.

SAMPLE PALLIATIVE CARE CURRICULUM

*based on your route of entry.

The curriculum plan above is an example of the palliative care curriculum. An individualized plan for each student is developed with the graduate programs office.

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

NU 640 Palliative Care I: Foundations of Serious Illness, Disease Progression and Quality of Life (3 credits)
This course will provide an intensive historical, sociopolitical and cultural perspective of the personal, professional, societal, cultural, spiritual, and ethical/legal issues related to serious illness and the end of life. The philosophy, principles, and models of palliative care are analyzed, as well as the role of the advanced practice nurse and others in a caring society. Students develop an understanding of the processes of illness, coping, facing death, and quality of life at various stages of the life cycle.  Students develop communication and counseling strategies, and other bio/psycho/social/spiritual strategies to maximize quality of life and assist individuals and families while receiving care for serious illness in various settings.

NU 641 Palliative Care II: Pain and Suffering in the Seriously Ill Patient (3 credits)
This course will provide an intensive focus on improving the quality of life, care and dying of individuals and families experience life-threatening illness through nursing assessment and interventions to relieve pain and suffering. Established palliative care standards will be utilized to evaluate the outcomes of such care. Management of pain and barriers to effective pain relief are discussed in depth.  Patient care strategies to improve quality of life, relieve pain and alleviate suffering are discussed within the context of advanced practice nursing.

NU 643 Palliative Care III: Palliative Care and the Advanced Practice Nursing Role (3 credits)
This course will provide advanced content relating to assessment and alleviation of complex symptoms relating to care of patients and families experiencing serious life-threatening illness. Students will analyze the impact of such illness on patient, family, community and the health care system. Resource availability and barriers to care are analyzed with the context of various settings. The leadership role of the advanced practice nurse in palliative care is delineated with emphasis on policy development, protocols, standards of practice, fiscal management, research utilization, quality improvement, patient advocacy, ethics, social-cultural issues and the role of the nurse leader in the interdisciplinary team. Students will participate in professional team meetings, family meetings and patient support groups.

MS Plan of Study

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