Medical Care for Dying People with Terminal Illness : Awareness of Palliative Care among Medical Students and Parents of Medical Students According to the Results of Medical Lectures in which Persons Receive Disconcerting Facts concerning Terminally Ill Patients

P(論文)In order to investigate the level of awareness of palliative care among medical students and parents of medical students, we gave a series of lectures where the party was informed of disconcerting facts in the form of role-plays conducted by medical students. As a result, we have realized that medical students during their undergraduate studies need to learn more systematically about palliative care. Although we found that all the first-year students knew the term 'palliative care, ' the results indicated that most of the senior medical students did not have adequate knowledge of palliative care. More than 80 percent of the medical students and their parents responded that they would like to be informed of disconcerting facts in the event they them-selves developed a serious disease. Their wishes concerning palliative care were classified mainly into the following three elements : (1) physical pain alleviation; (2) options for the type of medical treatment, including the place where they would spend their terminal stages; (3) mental care services. The parents expected that their son or daughter would become a physician with a deeper understanding of palliative care. However, the medical students still had minimal awareness of the importance of mental care at terminal stages and very little knowledge regarding the method of informing patients about serious diagnoses. We have concluded that the pursuit of more efficient and organized methods of notifying terminal patients about any disconcerting facts related to their cases is an effective element of deepening the understanding of palliative care.departmental bulletin pape