Cancer & Palliative Care Education

group of happy doctors meeting at hospital office

Cancer & Palliative Care Education:
at a glance

Credential(s) Earned: Certificate Programs


Program Length: 6 to 10 weeks (varies per course)


Description

de Souza Institute offers health care professionals online courses to enhance expertise to provide the best possible cancer and palliative care.

We provide health care professionals with the advanced knowledge and expertise to handle every situation including managing a reaction to chemotherapy medication, managing anxiety and fears, and managing pain and other symptoms.

Cancer Survivorship: Partnering With Patients to Improve Their Experience

This survivorship course is suitable for all regulated health care professionals working with cancer survivors in the hospital or community setting. An outstanding team of interprofessional educators contributed to the content development addressing general survivorship issues common to all cancer types. The course takes a patient-centred approach focusing on best practices and strategies to enable patients in self-management and self-care in the three core areas of survivorship: managing their health care, dealing with the consequences of cancer and its treatment, and adopting healthy lifestyle behaviours.

Course Code – SURV
Instruction Method – Online
Length – 9 weeks

For more information and to register, visit: de Souza Institute: Cancer Survivorship: Partnering With Patients to Improve Their Experience (SURV)

Cancer Care Basics

This online course will introduce health care professionals to oncology. Oncology patients receive care from all health care settings – including tertiary care centres, general hospitals, community care clinics, long term care and home care.They receive care from many health care professionals, depending on their disease, treatment and needs. Given the increasing complexity of this growing patient population, caring for people with cancer and their families involves a particular set of skills and knowledge from a variety of health care professionals.

This course will introduce the essential concepts in oncology, and provide fundamental information to those who work with oncology patients and their families.

Course Code – CANB
Instruction Method – Online
Length – 10 weeks

For more information and to register visit: de Souza Institute: Cancer Care Basics (CANB)

Education in Palliative Care

The Education in Palliative Care (EPC) course series has been reimagined with updated, leading practices in palliative care that now covers three additional life-limiting illnesses. It is designed to enhance the skills of healthcare providers who care for people with serious illnesses or deliver palliative and end-of-life care across Canada through interactive online modules and case study analysis. Completion of the 3 courses within the series will earn candidates the de Souza Certificate in Palliative and End-of-Life Care.

The first course in the series, Palliative Approach to Care, is a foundational course that covers topics ranging from serious illness conversations to comprehensive pain and symptom assessment to resolving conflict around person and family-centered palliative care.

The second course in the series, Symptom Assessment and Management in Palliative Care, teaches core skills to providing palliative care in a way that enhances the quality of life for patients living with serious illness. This course emphasizes a case-study approach to the assessment and management of the 4 common symptoms experience by patients in palliative care.

The last course in the series is called End-of-Life Care, Grief, and Loss. This course discusses sensitive topics around life-sustaining therapy, management of symptoms, and coping with loss and grief. It includes teaching communication methods around sensitive topics such as withdrawing life-sustaining measures and assisting patients and their families in times of loss and grief.

Course Code – EPC
Instruction Method – Online
Length – EPCA (7 weeks), EPCB (5 weeks), EPCC (5 weeks)

For more information and to register or try a sample module, please visit: de Souza Institute: The Education in Palliative Care (EPC) Course Series

Patient Navigation

Updated in 2021, this patient navigation course is designed to support health care professionals working with cancer patients or survivors in the hospital or community setting. The course covers core competencies in patient navigation and provides case studies to highlight unique challenges in service coordination by cancer disease site.  The course also includes tools and strategies to assess and address complex informational, physical and psychosocial needs of patients and families. The process to improve access for underserviced indigenous communities, ethno-cultural and diverse gender groups is emphasized.

Course Code– PNON
Instruction Method– Online
Length– 10 weeks

For more information and to register: de Souza Institute: Patient Navigation (PNON)