• Angel eLearning  

Medicine, Patients and Society III

Pablo Rodriquez del Pozo, M.D., J.D., Ph.D., Course Director
Deema Al-Sheikhly, MRes, Clinical Curriculum Coordinator

A two-week course for fourth year students that will help to promote self-reflective and humanistic practice. The course will have a special focus on improving competency in end-of-life patient care.

Knowledge:

• Identify psychosocial and contextual factors that influence care.
• Identify ethical and legal issues at the end of life.
• Identify principles of pain and symptom management.
• Apply knowledge of pain and symptom management in palliative care.

Skills:

• To apply ethical principles to patient care.
• To relieve pain and suffering through the application of palliative care skills.
• To communicate in an effective and humanistic manner with patients and their families.
• To envision models of patient advocacy.

Attitudes:

• Foster professionalism in the care of patients throughout the life cycle.
• Assume responsibility for the development of competence in both the humanistic and scientific dimensions of patient care.
• Appreciate the importance of respecting cultural diversity and differing patient values.

Methods:

• Participant Observation
• Rounds and Patient Assignments at Al Amal Hospital and Rumeilah Hospital
• Small Group Tutor Sessions
• Topical Seminars
• Student Case Presentations

• Student will be a participant observer on rotations, where they do not have direct patient care responsibilities.
• Student will observe patients and their families' responses to illness. Special attention will be paid to the ethical dimensions of: clinical practice, care of the dying, doctor/patient/family communication, issues of spiritually and issues of multiculturalism.
• Student will observe practices of residents, nurses and attendings for the ability to integrate the technical and humanistic dimensions of care.
• Student will record observations and reflections in daily logs. These observations will be discussed in small group sessions.
• Two students will be assigned to a single patient. During their week there, the students will meet the patient and talk with him/her (and family when appropriate) about their illness, review the medical record for the palliative care issues and treatment responses, and speak with the healthcare team and social workers about the patient.
• Toward the end of each week, the student pairs will present their patients to the entire class. Each student must participate in the presentation and must submit his/her own write up that addresses a specific aspect of the palliative medicine management of that patient. In these presentations, a consultant will be present, and all students must attend. The paper and presentation should include:
  
  
  1. The patient's medical history and physical, including psychosocial and narrative issues.
  2. Current palliative care issues.
  3. Diagnostic strategies to pain and other complaints.
  4. In depth discussion of treatment strategies used to address symptoms including drug choices and dosing strategies, delivery systems, side effects, cause of adjuvant treatments, psychotherapy.