Paediatric palliative care education opportunities

There has been a lot of publicity this year highlighting the inequities in Paediatric Palliative Care provision for children with serious illness, and their whānau in Aotearoa. A lack of access to education for health professionals has long been identified as a barrier to implementing quality delivery of paediatric palliative care. The Education in Palliative and End of Life Care for Paediatrics (EPEC-Ped) curriculum was developed in 2012 and has been internationally recognized as a high-quality curriculum with demonstrated results in changing practice. We have just published a new paper in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management to describe how we adapted this curriculum to meet the needs of clinicians working with children in Aotearoa. We particularly explore how tikanga Māori has been integrated into the programme to create a culturally relevant and safe space for practitioners to learn.

This programme is now offered as a short course through the University of Auckland. We have also secured philanthropic support to ensure cost isn’t a barrier to attending. Please pass on to any colleagues you think would be interested.

This project forms part of a programme of research led by Gemma and Tess, with the rest of the team comprising Deb, Merryn and our colleague Dr Ross Drake. For more information, including enquiries about the course, please contact Gemma.