Effectiveness of palliative care curriculum in a single medical school: a cross-sectional study among students

Caring for dying patients is a quotidian responsibility within medicine. The aim of this study was to better understand how well a medical school's curriculum and clinical exposure prepared students to cope with palliative care and improved their clinical confidence in palliative care medicine.

This was a cross-sectional study. A modified version of the Bereavement/End-of-life Attitudes about Care of Neonatal Nurses Scale (BEACONNS) questionnaire was administered to students of clinical years from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, from June 2021 to April 2022. An overall comfort score (OCS), a composite marker of students' comfort in participating in palliative care, was formulated from the summation of Likert-scale responses. A higher OCS denotes higher comfort with palliative care.

Of the 920 medical students of clinical years, 219 (23.8%) responded to the questionnaire. Across the clinical years, the percentage of students who felt unprepared to take care of palliative care patients and families was similar, with mean ± standard deviation OCS of 46.3 ± 12.6, 45.9 ± 9.4 and 44.9 ± 8.1 for years 3, 4 and 5 students, respectively. Prior experience in caring for dying relatives (P = 0.045) and knowledge of palliative care protocols and policies (P = 0.031) were significant positive factors in relation to improved OCS. Female gender was associated with higher OCS. Medical students recommended increased exposure to actual palliative care patients, rather than relying solely on simulated patients, to better equip them to care for patients at the end of life.

Medical students expressed a lack of confidence in palliative care medicine regardless of their year of study, and felt that there was insufficient teaching and exposure to palliative care education.