Explore dying and palliative care practice around the world and evaluate new trends and ideas surrounding end of life care issues. Learn about new directions and the latest thinking on end of life care. Death itself may be certain, but how we die involves many challenges. On this course, you’ll explore the care we receive when dying, cultural variations and beliefs around what makes a good death, and the planning and timing of death.
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With increasingly ageing populations, we are living longer but dying more slowly. New ideas around end of life care are therefore emerging in different contexts. You will discover the patterns and global trends taking place in palliative care, and explore these new approaches from a social science and humanities perspective.
Syllabus
Week 1: Definitions, Concepts, and the Particular Case of Hospital Dying
Week 2: Community Approaches to End of Life Care and Contemporary Dying
Week 3: The Rise of Autonomy, Choice and Personalisation
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Remember key elements and discussions in the end of life care challenges that are being faced around the world, including important metrics
- Understand the implications of these issues, debates and metrics for policy making, service organisation, clinical practice and public involvement
- Apply these understandings to specific situations with which learners will be presented in the course materials – through specific micro-case studies – and sharing their own experiences and ideas in discussion with others
- Analyse current debates on end of life care in ways which lead to comparisons between different settings
- Evaluate and make critical judgements based on research evidence about existing and new approaches to end of life care and potential solutions to problems identified
- Create new scenarios for future end of life care based on an analysis of needs, conflicting debates, best practice and the potential for innovation
Who is the course for?
This course is for people interested in or engaged in matters relating to death, dying, bereavement, palliative and end of life care.
This course will be of special interest to those working in healthcare, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and other health and social care professionals.
The course will also appeal to practitioners, students, researches, volunteers and policymakers in end of life care, as well as social activists and those working in artistic and cultural media who are working on end of life issues.
