Palliative medicine at the University. The experience from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Abstract

Objective: patients needing palliative care have been constantly increasing, and such trend may be foreseen to continue into the immediate future. Palliative medicine has gained recognition from society, and also from health institutions around the world, but not so much from universities. In a survey carried out in our country, 96.13% of 6783 Spanish primary care physicians recognized the need for a subject on palliative medicine in universities. We sought to assess the impression of students who had already studied the subject of palliative medicine at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University. Method: an anonymous survey was performed with students having already studied the subject of palliative medicine (optional, 3 credits, 6th year) during the first 4 years after curricular inclusion. Results: all but one student -who did not answer these questions-scored the subject's proposed objectives, topical contents, and teaching-learning methods very high (61.03%) or high (33.66%). Results were similar regarding students' opinions on professors. All but one student -who did not respond to questions- considered professors' integration, coordination, and group adjustment high or very high. Overall, 91% of students reported a satisfaction of 90% to 100% with the subject; more importantly, 87.02% considered 3 credits a very little reward for the subject, and 97.4% considered that the subject should be mandatory. Conclusions: students valued palliative care very positively, which advocates for the need to promote and consolidate palliative medicine as a pregrade subject.