Palliative Care Medical Education in European Universities: A Descriptive Study and Numerical Scoring System Proposal for Assessing Educational Development

• Published in: Journal of pain and symptom management Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 516 - 523.e2
• Main Authors: Carrasco, José Miguel, Lynch, Thomas J., Garralda, Eduardo, Woitha, Kathrin, Elsner, Frank, Filbet, Marilène, Ellershaw, John E., Clark, David, Centeno, Carlos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.10.2015
• Subjects: Anesthesia; development; Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods; Education, Medical, Undergraduate - statistics & numerical data; Educational Measurement - methods; Educational Measurement - statistics & numerical data; Europe; Faculty - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Internationality; medical education; Pain Medicine; palliative care; Palliative Care - methods; Palliative Care - statistics & numerical data; Palliative medicine; Palliative Medicine - education; Palliative Medicine - statistics & numerical data; undergraduate education; Universities - statistics & numerical data; WHO European Region; WHO European Region; development; undergraduate education; Palliative medicine; medical education; palliative care
• ISSN: 0885-3924; 1873-6513; 1873-6513
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.04.019

The lack of palliative medicine (PM) education has been identified as a barrier to the development of the discipline. A number of international institutions have called for its implementation within undergraduate medical curricula. The objectives are to describe the situation of undergraduate PM education in Europe and to propose a scoring system to evaluate its status. This descriptive study was conducted with data provided by key experts from countries of the World Health Organization European Region (n = 53). A numerical scoring system was developed through consensus techniques. Forty-three countries (81%) provided the requested information. In 13 countries (30%), a PM course is taught in all medical schools, being compulsory in six of them (14%). In 15 countries (35%), PM is taught in at least one university. In 14 countries (33%), PM is not taught within medical curricula. A full professor of PM was identified in 40% of countries. Three indicators were developed to construct a scale (rank 0–100) of educational development: 1) proportion of medical schools that teach PM (weight = 32%); 2) proportion of medical schools that offer PM as a compulsory subject (weight = 40%); 3) total number of PM professors (weight = 28%). The highest level of PM educational development was found in Israel, Norway, the U.K., Belgium, France, Austria, Germany, and Ireland. PM is taught in a substantial number of undergraduate medical programs at European universities, and a qualified teaching structure is emerging; however, there is a wide variation in the level of PM educational development between individual countries.