October 2021 | Issue 4
Palliative Care in the Southeast
The Southeast Institute of Innovation in Palliative and Supportive Care ( SIIPSC ) Quarterly Newsletter
Dear colleagues and friends :
Welcome to another edition of our newsletter . We are so happy to be able to highlight some of the wonderful accomplishments happening in palliative care in the Southeast . We are pleased to share the wonderful work of Dr . Kristi Acker and her experience in palliative care practice , especially since the start of the pandemic in 2020 . At the UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care , we have been busy developing and conducting some very exciting , new , innovative trainings , such as the African American Communities Speak and the Community Based Participatory Research Intensive .
African American Communities Speak to Health Care Professionals : Caring for Southern Elder African Americans with Serious Illness was designed to teach clinicians how to communicate with , and respect African
Ronit Elk , PhD American patients and their families in the way that African Americans
Associate Director community members , who participated in a study , asked for . The community Southeast Institute
members themselves created videos in which they acted out skits that they for Innovation in developed , about care aspects such as how to share prognosis when the news Palliative and is not good , how to include pastors in the conversations with doctors , and how Supportive Care to respect the community . These videos are used in the 3-hour ( zoom ) trainings
( SIIPSC ) in which participants break into small groups with trained facilitators and discuss and process and learn . Over 100 palliative care clinicians from around the US have participated in these trainings and all of them have spoken of how much they learnt from the community and how they will adapt their practice to include the community ’ s recommendations .
The goal of the Community Based Participatory Research Intensive Training is to teach clinicians and researchers ( and even administrators ) how to partner with the communities we serve , in order to jointly design healthcare programs that provide equitable care for all . We all do our best in our work , no matter what our role is , we may be the one taking care of patients or we may be in charge of a department or a clinic or a hospital . All of us want to do the best for all our patients , we really do . But many studies show that we don ’ t ; for example , African American patients receive less care for their pain , their wishes for end-of-life care are often not followed , and these patients and their families end up feeling hurt and disappointed in the care we provided them . This method , affectionately called CBPR , trains us how to partner equally with communities and listen to them and create programs that respect their values and preferences . This method has been proven , over and over again , to result in reducing health disparities and increasing health equity . By partnering with the communities we serve , we end up providing much better care to all our patients . This is the first-ever training provided to palliative care professionals ; you will get a chance to read more about it in this edition of our newsletter .
Have you developed a new initiative ? Do you have new staff members ? Let us know ; we would love to share your news in our newsletter . Let us highlight all the great things happening in palliative and supportive care in the Southeast !