Twelve tips to teach culturally sensitive palliative care

Abstract

With an increasingly ageing population there will be a rising demand for palliative care, including from older migrants and ethnic minorities. While many (future) physicians are unfamiliar with specific needs of older migrants and ethnic minorities regarding care and communication in palliative care, this may be challenging for them to deal with. Moreover, even many medical teachers also feel unprepared to teach palliative care and culturally sensitive communication to students. In order to support medical teachers, we suggest twelve tips to teach culturally sensitive palliative care to guide the development and implementation of teaching this topic to medical students. Drawn from literature and our own experiences as teachers, these twelve tips provide practical guidance to both teachers and curriculum designers when designing and implementing education about culturally sensitive palliative care.

Keywords:

• Community-oriented
• death and dying
• palliative care
• migrants and ethnic minorities

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeanine Suurmond

Dr. Jeanine Suurmond, PhD, Amsterdam University Medical Centres, location AMC, Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Katja Lanting

Katja Lanting, MSc, Amsterdam University Medical Centres, location AMC, Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Academy of Health (AGZ), Enschede, The Netherlands.

Xanthe de Voogd

Xanthe de Voogd, MSc, Amsterdam University Medical Centres, location AMC, Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Roukayya Oueslati

Roukayya Oueslati, MSc, Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Ethics and Law of Health Care, Leiden, The Netherlands; The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Department of Nursing, The Hague, The Netherlands.

Gudule Boland

Dr. Gudule Boland, PhD, Pharos, Dutch Centre of Expertise on Health Disparities, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Maria van den Muijsenbergh

Prof. Dr. Maria van den Muijsenbergh, PhD, MD, Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Primary Care and Community Health Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Pharos, Dutch Centre of Expertise on Health Disparities, Utrecht, The Netherlands.