Improving Palliative Care and Medical Assistance in Dying Practice in Canada: How Patients-Partners Could Contribute to Continuing Medical Education

Jacynthe Rivest; Ghislaine Rouly; Marie-Josée Brouillette; Olivia Nguyen; Véronique Desbeaumes Jodoin

doi:10.1089/pmr.2023.0008

Improving Palliative Care and Medical Assistance in Dying Practice in Canada: How Patients-Partners Could Contribute to Continuing Medical Education

Palliat Med Rep. 2023 Apr 21;4(1):116-119. doi: 10.1089/pmr.2023.0008. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jacynthe Rivest¹, Ghislaine Rouly², Marie-Josée Brouillette^{3

4}, Olivia Nguyen^{5

6}, Véronique Desbeaumes Jodoin¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal (CHUM) and Centre de Recherche du CHUM (CRCHUM), Montreal, Québec, Canada.
² Centre of Excellence on Partnership with Patients and the Public, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
³ Division of Infectious Diseases and Chronic Viral Illness Service, Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
⁵ Palliative Care Division, CIUSSS du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
⁶ Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada.

Abstract

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is still considered an evolving practice in Canada. Practitioners are facing the challenge of staying up to date and hence need efficient continuing medical education (CME). A patient-partner has been recently invited as a keynote speaker to CME activities in Canada to share her perspectives and views about patient engagement in palliative care and MAiD practice, calling for compassion. To our knowledge, few data exist on patient-partners' contribution to CME on these topics. Based on that experience, we discuss different issues on patient engagement's contribution in such CME events and call for further research.

Keywords: Medical Assistance in Dying; continuing medical education; palliative care; patient engagement; psychological suffering.