2010 Learning Objectives

Living with Grief: Cancer and End-of-Life Care
March 24, 2010

At the end of Living with Grief^®: Cancer and End-of-Life Care, participants should be able to:

1. Understand the complexities of professionals working with end-stage cancer patients and families when transitioning to hospice and palliative care from curative treatment, including how to employ effective communication skills, practices and protocols while also sensitively recognizing obstacles to the transition for the patient and family, which may involve medical, psychological, social, financial, caregiving, and spiritual needs. Validate programs that seek to bridge the move from treatment to palliative care as particularly helpful in today’s healthcare environment, as cancer patients often receive curative treatment up until several days before death.  Understand that families may need help navigating the transition and should be supported throughout.
2. Describe the range of physical, psychological and spiritual reactions that people who are dying of cancer may have and how to respond to and validate those reactions through a variety of approaches and therapies, which include but are not limited to: effective pain management, reminiscence and life review, doula programs, dignity therapy, massage, music and meditation. 
3. a.) Assess the varied and individual ways that families and other caregivers are coping with cancer and the imminent death of the patient, including whether they struggle with ambivalent feelings, complicated relationships, anger or guilt, and how to best intervene and provide support in a variety of situations, including those when a child or adolescent or an adult child is dying. Recognize and prepare to refer to patients and families to community assets available for support, including faith communities when appropriate.
   
   b.) Understand that professionals, paraprofessionals, and volunteers caring for cancer patients often experience occupational stress that can be overcome in a variety of ways, including understanding the importance of intentional, focused behavior and the difference they make for patients and families.
4. a.) Acknowledge that decisions made and events that occur during the cancer illness and dying process can change the course of bereavement; understand that grief is individual and has multiple manifestations that may or may not need professional counseling and/or support, and that faith communities and other community organizations should be empowered to help give support to grieving people.
   
   b.)  Share awareness that professionals working with cancer patients can also experience vicarious grief, counter-transference and transference, and recognize that hospices can provide effective support to professionals as they cope with loss in their professional lives.