Insights from a community-based palliative care course: a qualitative study

Background: The vast majority of medical students have no exposure to clinical palliative care encounters, especially in the community. Medical schools should respond to current challenges and needs of health systems by guaranteeing students adequate training that addresses palliative care needs of populations in different settings. The main purpose of this qualitative study was to capture the experiences of a select group of medical students’ following a community-based PC course. Methods: We carried out a qualitative study using two focus groups to capture the experience of medical students in a course that combined classroom teaching with community-based learning for undergraduate medical students in Germany. Discussions were transcribed and analyzed thematically. Results: Fifteen female students in their 2nd to 5th year participated in the focus groups, which provided didactic teaching and experiential learning. Four areas were particularly relevant: (1) authenticity, (2) demystification of the concepts of palliative care through personal contact with patients, (3) translation of theoretical knowledge into practice, and (4) observation of a role model interacting with seriously ill patients and engaging in difficult conversations. Conclusion: Students whose encounters with patients and their families went beyond a review of their medical records had a better grasp of the holistic nature of PC than those who did not. Bringing students directly from the hospital to patients in their homes reinforced the benefits of an integrated healthcare system.