Skip to main content

South Carolina AHEC System Partners with MUSC to Host Palliative Care Series

Lowcountry AHEC hosted the first offering of Primary Palliative Care Practices and Principles in April in conjunction with MUSC. The two-day workshop, which sold out, featured national and international speakers, Constance Dahlin, ANP-BC, ACHPN, FPCN, FAAN and Patrick J. Coyne, MSN, ACHRN, ACNS-BC, FAAN, FPCN.  The program focuses on assisting rural facilities with the creation of palliative care teams. Along with the didactic portion of the course, there is a clinical portion in which the instructors will visit the site to provide further training and assistance. Beaufort Memorial Hospital will be the first hospital to be provided this additional training.

 One of the participants, Dr. Kurt Gambla from Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) shared his thoughts and experiences from the two-day program.  Prior to the program, BMH was in the initial planning stages of the creation of their palliative care team. “We had the general concept prior to now,” remarks Dr. Gambla, “but we needed to consider the infrastructure more and to structure our plan to prepare for growth.”  The leadership is mission-driven knowing that having a palliative care team is the “right thing to do” even though it may not provide a significant amount of revenue.  With the support of leadership, Dr. Gambla and his colleagues are optimistic to implement their palliative care team by the beginning of July. 

“The on-going relationship with Patrick Coyne will be the most valuable relationship that we need.” On April 13, the CEO of BMH and others from the BMH met with Patrick Coyne and Constance Dahlin to discuss the implementation of their palliative care team.  They anticipate an expansion of roles in the future; however, at this time the palliative care team is comprised of Kurt Gambla, DO, Irina Borissova, MD, Amy Wagner, ANP-BC, Ronda O’Connell, ANP-BC, Jennifer Massey, LMSW ACHO, and Chaplain Ed Morgan. 

“I think it’s been an incredible learning experience which has helped us identify the gaps in our plan that we need to fill to make our team successful” says Dr. Gambla.
Are you interested in attending a palliative care workshop and having your team trained? There are still two more opportunities to attend:
  • June 26-27 at Mid-Carolina AHEC in Lancaster
  • September 18-19 at Upstate AHEC in Greenville
Click here to see credit details, find out more and to register.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marchek Siblings Stay Connected With Upstate AHEC Through Academic Journey

 A pair of siblings from Greer are giving back to current Upstate AHEC Health Careers students after completing the program themselves. Alex Marchek, MD is in his first year as a family medicine resident at Prisma Health Seneca. His younger sister by two years, Anna Marchek, is a second-year medical student at Edward Via College of Medicine (VCOM) Carolinas. “My mom likes to say she did good,” Anna joked. “Both of her kids are going to be doctors. She went two-for-two.” Anna (left) and Alex (right) Marchek are pictured with Nita Donald, Executive Director of Upstate AHEC. While Alex and Anna have both chosen to pursue medicine as a career, their interest in healthcare developed differently. Alex describes his discovery of health sciences as a slow realization. “It was definitely something that was on my radar really young,” said Alex. “My parents will say when I was six years old, I was talking about doing something in medicine. I had some really great science teachers in elementar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pee Dee AHEC Clinical Placements Help Students See Challenges – and Opportunities – of Rural Primary Care

  Third-year medical student Omar Guerrero didn’t find his passion for a career in healthcare until he began shadowing health professionals as an undergraduate student. “I just knew that I really loved science and working with my hands,” said Guerrero, who double-majored in Public Health and Cellular & Molecular Biology while at the University of South Florida. It all clicked for him once he was able to observe physicians in their encounters with patients. “I saw there was a real need for Spanish-speaking physicians,” said Guerrero. “There’s a lot of disconnect between providers and Spanish-speaking patients and I thought that was definitely an area that I could make a difference in.” Now in his third year at A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, Guerrero is doing a clinical placement at Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Inc. in Richland. Guerrero was connected with Pee Dee AHEC and their Health Professions Student (HPS) program...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maternal and Infant Health Module Sprout Available on AHEC Learning Portal

  In an effort to help improve maternal and infant health outcomes in South Carolina, SC AHEC has developed a new educational module titled Sprout , which serves as a collection of information, tools and resources available in the state to support healthy mothers and babies. The module, created in partnership with the SC Office of Rural Health’s (SCORH) Family Solutions and March of Dimes of SC , can be found on the AHEC Learning Portal at www.scahec.net/learn/sprout .     Sprout is an expansion from SC AHEC’s routine educational programming, as the module is targeted toward community members instead of health professionals. To make sure information is reaching all members of the public, the program simplifies or defines many terms that are used commonly in healthcare and is written in plain language that non-healthcare professionals can easily understand.    “The goal is for any resident of South Carolina who is interested in supporting healthy moms and ...
Post a Comment
Read more