The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) School of Pharmacy is seeking to address the dearth of palliative care-trained clinicians and improve care among seriously ill patients.
By 2060, the demand for palliative care is expected to nearly double, according to the World Health Organization. Yet, despite this need, significant gaps in training remain, with many professionals lacking exposure to hospice or palliative care during their schooling. UMB seeks to bolster the palliative care workforce through its online Graduate Studies in Palliative Care program, launched in 2017.
While most palliative care clinical education programs see small cohorts of five or fewer students, UMB is seeing a larger crowd of professionals enter the workforce. Of the Class of 2024, 36 students received their Master of Science degree and seven received a graduate certificate.
“We have an amazing diversity of students,” Mary Lynn McPherson, professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the School of Pharmacy and executive program director of Graduate Studies in Palliative Care, told Palliative Care News.
McPherson also serves as the executive director of Advanced Post-Graduate Education in Palliative Care at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.
From the usual suspects, like physicians, nurses, and chaplains, to the more nontraditional ones, like veterinarians, dentists and death doulas, McPherson said she has seen all sorts of learners come through the doors. In fact, their backgrounds are so diverse that she typically separates students into two groups: “Team Body” and “Team Soul.”
“I would ask a discussion question and say, ‘Okay, Team Body, if you self-identify as being a Team Body person, read this case, and then what information would you like to get from a Team Soul person?’” McPherson said.
The two-year program, which is fully online, consists of both required and elective courses, totalling 30 credits. Students have ample flexibility due to the program’s asynchronous structure, McPherson said, enabling them to work full-time and even travel while earning their degrees.
The program’s interdisciplinary nature is another key feature that sets it apart.
According to McPherson, a physician should know how to navigate a basic spiritual conversation just like a chaplain should know how to navigate a basic pain management conversation.
“It’s the only interdisciplinary palliative care masters I know of,” Brad Macy, a registered nurse and recent graduate and a 30-year veteran hospice nurse, told Palliative Care News.
Macy, who co-founded Hospi Corporation and invented the Macy Catheter, continued, “You can’t take care of one side of the patient without taking care of the other side, and that includes the family unit to even the caregivers and the community that the patient is in.”
Macy also discussed how palliative care is evolving, noting that it could merge with hospice down the line and how The University of Maryland’s program has empowered him to advance both fields through the transition.
“I see a merger between those two entities as a really powerful movement forward, not only helping hospice, but also helping access to palliative care,” he said.
McPherson said she designed the curriculum around the National Consensus Project (NCP) Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, which emphasizes a holistic approach to addressing not only physical symptoms but also the psychosocial and spiritual needs of patients and their families.
“I’m an enormous fan of what we call transdisciplinary care,” McPherson told PCN. “What does that mean? It means, yes, I’m a pharmacist, but you know what? I’m 10% social worker, and I’m 10% nurse, and I’m 10% chaplain.”
McPherson said she also followed the instructional design principle of “begin with the end in mind,” which essentially involves starting with a learning objective (or 14 terminal performance objectives, in McPherson’s case) and working backwards.
Furthermore, the program builds on itself through scaffolded learning, where students revisit and reinforce skills throughout their education, she said, and pulls from various health care certification exams.
“I’m not crazy enough to say, ‘If you want to take a certification exam, you should do my whole masters,’ but I promise you, if you do my masters, there’s not an exam out there that you could not pass,” McPherson stated.
When it comes to improving quality care among seriously ill populations, Macy told PCN that professionals need to focus on underserved and underrepresented populations.
“[Underserved and underrepresented populations] need unbiased care. They need care defined in their own terms. So we need to meet people where they are within those populations; there’s a lot of trust to be built,” he said.
However, none of that can happen without proper education, according to Macy.
“If we really want to put that palliative care foot forward, we need to teach it to the doctors. It needs to be first and foremost,” Macy said.
