Georgian College is partnering with Brightshores Health System to provide palliative care training to healthcare professionals in the region.
Georgian College Executive Director of Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Dr. Mira Ray says the new partnership will offer palliative care training to primary care physicians, care coordinators, paramedics, nurses and other healthcare professionals this fall.
“Each one of these care providers are familiar working within their own scope, but the value of this program is bringing them together to train together,” says Ray.
Ray says this initiative aims to provide interdisciplinary hands-on learning for palliative care over three sessions. Between six to eight participants will come together in a simulated environment where they will be using mannequins and patient actors.
Georgian will be hosting the teaching and learning spaces while Brightshores helps deliver the program.
Ray says this will give the participants experience, training and education on collaborating and treating palliative patients.
“We needed to learn more, train more in an interdisciplinary manner to be able to help shepard palliative patients to their end with dignity and care as a collaboration,” says Ray.
She adds given the aging population in the region, there is an increased need for healthcare professionals to be well-versed in palliative care.
“It’s about caring for people with dignity, through to the end of their lives and I think that is really the heart of it. Understanding different emotional and social dynamics in their learning environment to help standardize patient care to help bring in a more empathetic care and human element to the care,” says Ray.
