Yea for Yale!

Beginning this fall, Yale University will require medical students, and encourage nursing and divinity students, to participate in a comprehensive palliative and end-of-life care curriculum. The students will work through interactive case studies and communicate with each other on blogs to share their ideas. The interdisciplinary students will also collaborate in workshops to gain insight on working as a team when caring for patients and their families.

According to the press release from Yale, "Students will learn to recognize spiritual distress in a patient and how to conduct an empathetic, respectful open-ended dialogue to help reveal the patient’s concerns, as well as other interventions to provide support and encouragement. The students also will be encouraged to recognize how their own spiritual and cultural beliefs might affect the way they relate to and provide care for patients at the end of life."

Yea for Yale! Let's hope more schools - medical, nursing, divinity, and social work - follow suite.