Skills you'll gain

Specialization - 5 course series

Learners will use real-world strategies, tools and techniques to assess sources of suffering and learn communication techniques that support patients living with serious illness. Authentic patient scenarios are used to allow learners to apply new knowledge and practice new skills that they can then apply and integrate into their own clinical settings.

You will be able to immediately use these insights, skills and tools in your work with people living with serious illness. In later courses, you will learn to ease pain and other symptoms, such as loss of appetite, shortness of breath and fatigue. In the final course, you will explore ways to ease psycho-social-spiritual distress. These courses will prepare you to bring basic palliative care to all in need.

In this course, you will be able to develop a systems view for assessing and managing pain in the palliative care setting. By the end of the course, you will be able to: 1) Describe the pain problem in the palliative care setting; 2) Assess a person’s pain, 3) Explain the benefits of integrative therapies and pharmacologic strategies to manage pain.

You will be able to immediately use these insights, skills, and tools in your work with people living with serious illness. In other courses, you will learn communication skills, whole person assessment, how to ease physical pain and explore ways to ease psycho-social-spiritual distress.

In this course, you’ll learn how serious and life-threatening illnesses often affect emotional and spiritual well-being. Illnesses can increase stress as patients and families learn to live with a “new normal” that may often focus on illness. You’ll learn how to tell when normal sadness (or grief) becomes something more serious and needs to be addressed. People with serious illnesses also have social concerns as their family, friends and community support system becomes stretched, and sometimes fails. We’ll talk about resources and skills you can use to help support patients and families. You’ll learn about advance care planning, that includes shared decision-making, setting goals of care, and writing down plans for care.

The Five Assignments: 1) Use the Nature of Suffering Evaluation Form to guide your conversation with someone living with serious illness and report and reflect on how this illness is impacting different aspects of their lives. 2) Using SNAP/Self-Awareness skills explore the values of someone close to you and your own values as relate to health, illness and dying. 3) Using the WILDA tool complete a pain assessment with someone living with serious illness. 4) Using the ESAS tool complete a physical symptom assessment with someone living with serious illness. 5) Have a conversation with someone you know about Advance Care Planning. In the assignment you will focus on who would be the person that they would want to speak for them if they could not speak for themselves, often known as the MDPOA. When you successfully complete all 5 of these assignments and the other course work you will earn the Coursera Specialization Certificate in Palliative Care. More importantly you will be prepared to help others live well with serious and life-limiting disease.

Pain Management: Easing Pain in Palliative Care

Easing Physical Symptoms: It's Not Just Hospice Anymore

Psychosocial and Spiritual Aspects of Palliative Care

Palliative Care Capstone Projects