Culture & End of Life Care: Patients' Beliefs and Values

This course teaches a step-wise process, LEARN (Listen, Explain, Acknowledge, Recommend, Negotiate), for understanding and incorporating culture in patient care. The introductory module presents Explanatory Models as the basis for mutual understanding of the illness experience and teaches eight basic questions for eliciting the patient's Explanatory Model for the current illness experience. Subsequent interactive case studies focus on the role of spirituality in end-of-life decision making, responding to the family’s preference for shielding the patient from full disclosure of a life-limiting illness, and incorporating the patient’s use of CAM in the plan of care.