Tuesday, 12/6/2016
The
degree in Medicine at University of Minho will include training in palliative
care after the celebration of a protocol, in late November, between the School
of Medicine and the Ministry of Health.
The School of Medicine at University of Minho has signed a protocol with
the Ministry of Health in order to include the formalization of specialized training
in palliative care in the academic curricula. The new program in palliative
care will be integrated in the degree from the next school year on.
This kind of specialized training will be broadened to other professional
groups such as nurses and psychologists. Miguel Julião holds a PhD in
Palliative Care and he is one of the professors responsible for this training.
He says that the changes aim at drawing students’ attention to the human
person, their dignity, their limits, vulnerabilities and potentials within
their incurable and advanced state of disease.
This training is based on a document by the European Association for
Palliative Care and its goal is to approach palliative care through three
dimensions: knowledge, the ability to execute, and attitudes, evaluated through
discussion and reflection. “Our wish is that no medical student begins the
noble medical profession without knowing and integrating palliative medicine, with
the ability to treat holistically in the absence of a cure by listening to
people and becoming aware of other people’s suffering and the need to relieve
it”, says Julião.
Although it was created in 2012, the national network of palliative care
was not implemented. There are no specialized teams in palliative care in a
third of the Portuguese hospitals. When it comes to health centers, the last
assessment (in July) showed that there were only 18 teams across the country.
Miguel Julião believes that, besides healthcare, the national network of
palliative care should also generate “clinical research with outcomes that
could be beneficial for people who are sick but also for their families and the
health systems they belong to”.
The Ministry of Health wants to broaden the network
of palliative care and will increase the budget given to hospitals and health
centers that are willing to invest in specialized teams. There are around 82
thousand people in need of palliative care in Portugal. In spite of this, the
doctor Miguel Julião highlights that pre and post-graduated training in this
area is still rare and within the academia it is often seen as unnecessary.
