Postgraduate course

Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care

The Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care is a multi-disciplinary course that aims to be the industry standard for health professionals working in palliative care.  The course explores the core concepts of palliative care including practice standards, symptom management, communication skills, evidence-based practice, non-cancer contexts, psychosocial issues, bereavement care, and care and support for carers.

Overview of the Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care

Background

The Centre for Palliative Care has a state-wide role in palliative care education, with a focus on ensuring education is multi-disciplinary and delivered by experts in their field, who may be drawn from multiple institutions around Victoria as appropriate.  The goals for the Centre in regard to palliative care education are to:

• Increase general understanding and skill in palliative care through education and training of the general health workforce
• Develop future leaders in palliative care through programs designed to increase the number of palliative care specialists, and through facilitating opportunities for networking, peer support and leadership development.

As part of its strategy to offer education in palliative care, the Centre recognised the need to develop a university accredited postgraduate training program in palliative care, which would be the industry standard for working in specialist palliative care and open to all disciplines as well as interstate participants. The Centre partnered with Melbourne Consulting and Custom Programs at University of Melbourne to develop and deliver ‘The Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care’.

The ‘Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care’ is a formal award of the University of Melbourne, comprising 25 points of training at Masters level, delivered as two standard 12.5 point subjects requiring 4-5 days of face-to-face teaching each. ‘Fundamentals of Palliative Care’ is the core subject for the Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care and students can then choose either ‘Adult Palliative Care’ or ‘Paediatric Palliative Care’ to complete the award course.  The Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care is a stand-alone award in its own right that can be used for credit into more substantial postgraduate courses (such as Masters Courses).  In addition, some components of the award course subjects are offered as short course options.

Achievements

Over the three years since the Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care was introduced, a total of 63 students have successfully completed the award course.  Students have included health professionals from the following disciplines:  nursing, medicine, social work, family support worker, occupational therapy, pastoral care, speech therapy, music therapy, physiotherapy and hospital chaplaincy.

Academic Prize

The Order of Malta Award is an annual prize ($1000), which is awarded to the student who achieves the overall highest academic grade for the year for the Specialist Certificate in Palliative Year.  The Order of Malta in Australia is part of a 900-year-old organisation that has been a passionate advocate for palliative care provision and for improving the quality of care provided to patients and families confronted by life-threatening illness.

The recipients of the award to 2010 are:

• 2008:  Dr Nikola Atkin, registrar in a metropolitan inpatient palliative care unit (now in UK)
• 2009:  Dr Deborah Harley, a GP from the Geelong region of Victoria
• 2010:  Melonie Taylor, a community palliative care nurse working in metropolitan Melbourne.

The future

‘Grief Loss and Bereavement’ and ‘Psychosocial Issues in Cancer and Palliative Care’ are two new subjects currently in the planning phase and will be ready for delivery in 2012.  The increased subject range will provide students with options for further study including working toward a Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Masters programs.

Further information

Centre for Palliative Care

We welcome enquiries about the Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care or any of our other short courses.  Please contact Sandie Luu by email palliativecare@mccp.unimelb.edu.au or phone 03 9810 3136 for information.

Alternatively you can:

Download a brochure on the 2012 Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care award course here.

Download a brochure on short courses here.

Melbourne Consulting and Custom Programs

T: 61 3 9810 3300
F: 61 3 9810 3149
E: mccp.enquiries@mccp.unimelb.edu.au