As a 23-bed palliative care facility operating in the west end of Montreal since 2002, (鈥淭he Residence鈥�), wanted to increase the availability of quality palliative care beyond its four walls. In 2018, it founded the Montreal Institute for Palliative Care (鈥淭he Institute鈥�), whose goal was to enlarge palliative care access, capacity and quality through education, knowledge exchange, research and advocacy. The Institute offers education and knowledge exchange programs for students through rotations at the Residence, for the general public through community and online workshops, and for healthcare professionals through workshops, community of practice and lectures.
Partnering with other organizations ensures that our curriculum is evidence-based and contemporary.
鈥淧art of my role here is to assess both internal and external needs related to understanding what palliative care is, and to address misconceptions. In addition, understanding what the educational needs are is very important to us. It was the lack of clarity related to end-of-life care that really helped propel two initiatives forward. In offering these two programs for healthcare professionals, we feel we can really provide high quality training and work on capacity building,鈥� said Anita.
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Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative and End-of-Life Care (LEAP)听(developed by ) is structured learning for any healthcare professional working with patients with a chronic life-threatening illness. Its goal is to increase awareness about palliative care, both what it is and what it isn鈥檛. In addition, the program supports both those already experienced in palliative care as well as those who are seeking to gain knowledge and expertise to improve their provision of end-of-life care.
The benefits of the LEAP Core 2-day workshop is that it brings together a multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals who all share the same desire to learn more about the key concepts related to palliative care. The topics range from symptom management to the importance of addressing psychosocial concerns for patients and families. LEAP stresses the place for palliative care early on in the illness trajectory and supports participants through the challenging aspects of having conversations related to serious illness, and death and dying.
For details of September 8th workshop, please click on
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mini_leap_poster_en_public_interprofessional_community.pdf.
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Our Serious Illness conversations (SIC) workshop (developed by) builds on those concepts. The combination of theory and practice through role play is an excellent way to facilitate a discussion on hard-to-have conversations. Our hope is to reach enough healthcare professionals to normalize these conversations and prompt discussions about hopes and expectations related to palliative care sooner. Like other practitioners in palliative care, we have unfortunately witnessed many patients and families being referred to palliative care too late or not at all.
At the Residence, we have five certified facilitators who have completed the facilitator training workshops with Pallium/LEAP-Dr. Bouchard, Dr. Iancu, Anita Mehta, Dr. Neamt and Manuella Piovesan, the latter four are also certified to run the Serious Illness Workshop.
For details of September 21st, 2023 SIC workshop, please click on听 serious_illness_sept_2023.pdf
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鈥淚n the creation of partnerships and collaborative initiatives we hope to serve as a resource and point of reference for evidenced-based practices and clinical expertise. Workshops such as LEAP and SIC are great learning forums that promote discussion, the exchange of experience and expertise, while creating connections with other healthcare professionals,鈥� stated Anita.
Dale Weil, Executive Director of the Residence summarizes the collaborative philosophy and stresses the importance of creating partnerships when she says, 鈥淚t is both critical and rewarding to work with others who share in our vision and desire to deliver optimal palliative care for patients and to support their families."
For more information: Nicole Lapointe, (514) 693-1718, extension 256: nlapointe [at] tdpcr.ca