A study identifies differences in access to training in palliative care in Europe.
data of 43 countries reveal inequalities of training in a subject core topic due to the aging of the population and the increase in the prevalence of pathologies with long periods of advanced disease.
A study conducted with data from 43 countries in the European Region of the World Health Organization has revealed that medical students have unequal access to training in Palliative Care. The work, led by researchers from the ATLANTES Program of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra, has been published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
To assess the status of the teaching of the discipline, the researchers propose a system of score addressing three factors: the proportion of Schools of Medicine in which Palliative Care is taught; the proportion of Schools of Medicine that offer it as a mandatory subject ; and the issue total number of Palliative Care professors.
From agreement with research, in 13 of the countries analyzed palliative care is taught in all medical schools Schools , but only in six of them is it a compulsory subject . In 15 countries, it is taught only in some universities and in 14 there is no specific subject of training at subject. Israel, Norway, United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Austria, Germany and Ireland seem to be the places where the teaching of Palliative Care is more developed.
The authors conclude that although Palliative Care is part of a "substantialissue " of medical programs at Degree in European universities and that a "qualified teaching structure" is emerging, the wide differences between countries are evident.
In this sense, they claim that progress should be made in the integration of specific Palliative Medicine programs in universities: "The aging of the population and the increase in the prevalence of pathologies with long periods of advanced disease and difficult symptom control means, from a public health and social-health care perspective, facing a challenge for which health professionals must be prepared".
The study has been carried out through the partnership of the work groups of development Palliative Care and Education Médica of the association European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC). The authors of the article are Carlos Centeno, José Miguel Carrasco, Eduardo Garralda and Kathrin Woitha, from the ATLANTES Program of the ICS of the University of Navarra; Thomas J. Lynch, from the Kimmer Cancer Center of the Johns Hopkins University (USA); Frank Elsner, from the Kimmer Cancer Center of the Johns Hopkins University (USA); and Frank Elsner, from the Kimmer Cancer Center of the Johns Hopkins University (USA).); Frank Elsner, from department Palliative Care at RWTH Aachen University (Germany); Marilène Filbet, from the Academic University Hospital Lyon Sud HCL (France); John E. Ellershaw, from high school Marie Curie Palliative Care at the University of Liverpool (UK); and David Clark, from the University of Glasgow -campus Dumfries- (UK).