Jocelyn’s goal of placement was to get a ‘birds-eye’ view of metropolitan palliative care providers that patients are referred to in order to better equip myself with external knowledge and be better informed about services in order to further support patients. Additionally Jocelyn wanted to build her palliative care knowledge in order to identify clinical needs and advocate for earlier referral/facilitate end of life (EoL) conversations. Jocelyn felt that she met her goals as she visited SJOGM Hospice, Silver Chain Hospice (Community), MPaCCS and Bethesda Hospital; and experienced a broad range of clinician perspectives and referral/triage systems.
Jocelyn believes her clear areas for learning were:
- Effective communication strategies for EOL/GOC discussions
- Referral / triage systems
- Hard/soft skill exposure i.e. clinical assessment and interventions vs patient/family education
- Understanding importance of Social Worker involvement and family meeting coordination Partnerships with patients and families with clinical care
- Clinical assessment and symptom management
Jocelyn knows that all of these knowledge and skills will be taken back to her workplace and she plans evaluate and audit Social Work referrals from the Cancer Centre and formulate an assessment tool or education session to fellow nurses to equip them with Allied Health Care knowledge; possibility of having palliative care liaison/link nurse role to work together with Social Work/Welfare Services for earlier referrals and Advance Care Planning. Jocelyn knows that from her experience that Initiating earlier Social Worker assessment and interventions in order to promote Advanced Care Planning and supporting patient end-of-life wishes will support improved patient care outcomes in her service.