Palliative Care

Palliative care is any form of medical care or treatment that reduces the severity of disease symptoms. Effective palliative care helps prevent and relieve suffering, and improves the quality of life of people facing serious, complex, and advanced illness. Yale School of Medicine has developed and implemented longitudinal educational activities to enhance end-of-life and palliative care training. Our focus is integration of end-of-life and palliative care education into the curriculum over the four years of medical school. We believe all medical student graduates, regardless of future specialty, should acquire basic comfort, knowledge, and skills in the care of patients with terminal illness. In our efforts, we have been successful at building collaborations within the institution and developing both inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional educational teams that include diverse clinical departments. The program provides a comprehensive approach that focuses on the physical, psycho-social, spiritual, and practical needs of patients and families.