Palliative care must be an integral part of a country’s health care system, and as such it must be an element of comprehensive health care plans, and of specific programmes concerning, for instance, cancer, Aids or geriatrics. On the basis of a needs assessment, national or regional governments need to design and implement comprehensive rational palliative care strategies in close collaboration with professionals and patients and families, or their representatives. The aim of the project is to create open digital educational resources in the field of palliative medicine based on developing innovative guidelines on standardized fundamental medical manoeuvres and clinical language and communication skills for supporting the learning/teaching processes of the medical lecturers, of the language teachers who teach medical students, of medical students, and of the lay people involved in causalities. By doing this the project aims to harmonise the curricula transversally, helping students in preclinical years to develop applied skills that will be further supported academically by knowledge gained though academic progress in the coming clinical years. Academic, scientific, and professional skills will be acquired in an interdisciplinary manner with support offered concertedly by the palliative medical subjects and the languages and communication subjects. This general aim will be achieved through these specific objectives: - Promote stronger coherence between different EU and national transparency and recognition tools and ensure that skills are recognised across borders by identifying, defining and standardizing the palliative medical and nursing skills, which allow students across Europe to be active participants in clinical routine after their first year of medical studies. - Improve the level of key competences and skills, with particular regard to their relevance for the labour market (everyday medical practice), through strengthened cooperation between the world of education and training and the world of work; - Improve the teaching and learning of languages and promote the EU's broad linguistic diversity and intercultural awareness - Develop innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning and eLearning materials which support students both during their skills training and their practical module - Foster quality improvements, innovation excellence and internationalisation at the level of education and training institutions, in particular through enhanced transnational cooperation between education and training providers and other stakeholders - Facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge Throughout its activities, the Palliative Care MOOC project addresses and have a consistent impact on its direct target groups: - Lecturers & students in medicine (Medical Universities) - (Foreign) in-service medical staff - Social assistants or other staff dealing with palliative care(hospitals/hospices/homecare) - Language teachers/trainers in medical institutions - Volunteers (Volunteering bodies) - Educational centres - Companies active in social corporate responsibility Main project products (outputs) will be: O1 - Specialized research of medical literature and practice about palliative care O2 - Project website O3 - Guide of operational procedures on palliative medicine O4 - Quality Assurance and Validation of the protocols on operational procedures on palliative medicine in the world of work O5 - Video support for protocols generated O6 - Medical communication linguistic resources O7 - Palliative Care MOOC on palliative medical procedures and medical communication, in 6 languages O8 - Trainer’s Transversal Kit – palliative and linguistic fields O9 - Exploitation and Sustainability of the project The Palliative Care MOOC project will help medical staff, students and language teachers manage the environment successfully (medical situations) by ensuring sustainable medical courses on operational procedures in palliative care, in 6 language contexts that result in good health outcomes for patients and greater professional satisfaction for all the actors involved in a medical situation across Europe.
The project came out as a practical answer to the context of the ageing population in EU. The needs of the beneficiaries targeted and then involved in the project showed that qualified medical assistance for palliative medicine in the partner countries was scarce and in many situations palliative health-care assistants acquired basic knowledge and skills on the job. The need to train qualified medical staff to meet the growing demand of assistance in the field of palliation in EU is a must. How to do this in a qualified, standardised way and with knowledge and skills aligned to the most recent research findings in the field was the practical challenge to be met and jointly answered in the project by the EU partnership. The project created a very comprehensive interdisciplinary MOOC which offers 20 fundamental palliative medicine procedures. Each procedure has a description that follows a standardised approach, with videos to illustrate how the procedure is being done, including the communication that accompanies the performance of that procedure and with a linguistic unit that practices that specialised communication flow. The 20 procedures with the videos and the accompanying linguistic units are available in 6 EU languages: DT, EN, FR, IT, ES, RO. The interdisciplinary approach is definitely an innovation where the medical content is fertilised by the linguistic approach; due to the inter-disciplinarity proposed by this resource, combined knowledge and skills from the medical and linguistic fields ensue plus specialised communication skills in the domain of palliative medicine are practise. The MOOC approach was a total innovation for all the countries involved in connection to the specialised field of palliative medicine. Added to this the pedagogy specific to technology-enriched education is a first applied to resources from the domain of palliative care. Collaborative learning and evaluation of knowledge and skills, networking and constructivism at the basis of introducing and practising skills for palliation through the MOOC resources and techniques are innovatively applied to a vocational field much indebted otherwise to classic teacher-centred approaches. The project covers the following specific objectives: - Promote stronger coherence between different EU and national transparency and recognition tools and ensure that skills are recognised across borders by identifying, defining and standardizing the palliative medical and nursing skills, which allow students across Europe to be active participants in clinical routine after their first year of medical studies. - Improve the level of key competences and skills, with particular regard to their relevance for the labour market (everyday medical practice), through strengthened cooperation between the world of education and training and the world of work; - Improve the teaching and learning of languages and promote the EU's broad linguistic diversity and intercultural awareness - Develop innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning and eLearning materials which support students both during their skills training and their practical module - Foster quality improvements, innovation excellence and internationalisation at the level of education and training institutions, in particular through enhanced transnational cooperation between education and training providers and other stakeholders Starting with a partnership of 9 partners from 4 countries having complementary significant expertise and experience both academic (medical: P1, P2, P5, P6; linguistic & training: P3, P8, P9) and in the world of work (P4, P7); the project addresses and have a consistent impact on its direct target groups: - Lecturers & students in Medical Universities - (Foreign) in-service medical staff - Social assistants or other staff dealing with palliative care (hospitals/hospices/homecare) - Language teachers/trainers in medical institutions - Volunteering bodies - Educational centres - Companies active in social corporate responsibility Main project results are: -Specialized research of medical literature and practice about palliative care in Romania, Italy, Spain and Belgium -Guide of 20 Medical Procedures in 6 languages, topics covered are: Catheterisation; Paracentesis; Automatic syringe; Bed transfer; Conspiracy of silence; Active listening; Communicating news; Spiritual assessment; Nutrition; Oral care; Patient bath; Pain assessment; Pain prescribing; Burn out syndrome; End of life care; Terminal phase; Prevention Ulcer; Awareness level; Patients’ network; Caregivers’ needs. -20 videos with simulation of palliative care procedures -120 language units for 6 languages -2 MOOCs in the fields of palliative care and medical communication -7 Educational Toolkits published on hard copies with DVDs (319 copies) -Project website - http://medlang.eu -1.469 people directly involved by the project activities and other 320.000 reached