Medical College of Wisconsin Receives Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant

The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee has received a two-year, $513,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop palliative care educational programs for medical students and faculty at six U.S. medical schools.

David E. Weissman, M.D., professor of medicine in neoplastic diseases and related disorders and director of the Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin Palliative Care Program, is the project director. The project will be led by the College’s Palliative Care Center and Office of Educational Services and includes co-investigators from Harvard Medical School and the University of Rochester.

“Our goal with this project is to improve the care of patients with serious and life-threatening illnesses by providing medical students with early exposure to required and elective palliative care educational experiences,” said Dr. Weissman. “We also want to train school faculty in the most effective ways of teaching palliative care.”

Six medical schools will be recruited for the project and will be provided access to teaching materials through EPERC (End-of-Life/Palliative Education Resource Center), an online palliative care educational resource funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and coordinated by the Medical College.

As part of the project, required and elective palliative care courses will be developed and established for third- and fourth-year medical students at each of the six pilot site medical schools. Faculty development programs in palliative care will also be developed and established.

Representatives from participating schools will also have the opportunity to attend PCEP (Program in Palliative Care Education and Practice), a two-week immersion experience for physicians and nurses in palliative care educational methods and clinical practice. Developed at Harvard Medical School, it is considered the premier palliative care faculty development program in the United States.

The College has been a national leader in Hospice and Palliative Medicine since 1991, when it became one of the first medical schools to have a dedicated undergraduate course in Palliative Medicine.

“Through more than 15 years of palliative care educational research, we have developed methods and resources for teaching medical students and faculty the most effective ways to care for and communicate with terminally ill patients and their families,” said Dr. Weissman. “We are thankful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for providing the support we need to share what we’ve learned with other medical schools around the country.”