Primary Palliative Care Education for Geriatricians: Lessons Learned

The objective of this review was to determine the current resources and advances in primary palliative care education for geriatricians.Recent findingsThe review encompassed literature written between 2018 –2022 accessed via PubMed and Google Scholar. From the review process itself, we learned that there is no standard definition of primary palliative care (PPC) and that different domains of PPC are often taught and studied separately. While many aspects of palliative care are now incorporated into the geriatric medicine fellowship educational milestones, the PPC competencies for practicing geriatricians remains ill-defined. This suggests that creating a standardized definition of PPC will benefit future research and help better define the scope of both palliative care and geriatric medicine. Furthermore, the majority of PPC offerings are piecemeal in nature with significant variety in cost and educational content.SummaryPPC education is often marketed to a wide range of practitioners and there exists little geriatric-specific PPC education. PPC education designed specifically for practicing geriatricians who may not have had the benefit of a more recent fellowship experience remains an area primed for further opportunity and expansion.
Source: Current Geriatrics Reports - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research