Contribution from Katharine Kolcaba on the importance of comfort of carers of palliative care patients in community

The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) offers an online Undergraduate and New Graduate Curriculum for entry into practice through Relias Learning. This includes six, one-hour online modules.

Blank’s 2011 article, “End-of-Life Decision Making Across Cultures” provides a comparative analysis of end-of-life decision-making in twelve countries. The author provides demographic information. He, then, summarizes the differences by country of the cost of dying, use of advanced directives, acceptance of euthanasia, and definition of brain death.

This publication utilizes the AACN Essentials which underscore the value of including both palliative and hospice care within nursing curricula.  The authors postulate that health equity will never be achieved until issues  related to the social determinants of health, system biases and personal biases provide a foundation for education focusing on the causative factors for poor outcomes in vulnerable groups, particularly those who are living with complex medical conditions.