Department of Supportive Care

Overview

Eligibility Requirements:
Any learner registered in a Canadian UGME training program. For non-Canadian electives, please contact education coordinator.

Duration:
We usually ask that elective medical students apply for at least a 2-week rotation.

Funding Requirements:
Not applicable.

Clinical Components:
Combination of clinics, inpatient consults and palliative care unit placements, with medical students usually being placed on the consult service.

Research Components:
Not applicable.

Education/Teaching Components:
Learners will be able to participate in our core palliative care teaching sessions, which cover a breadth of different topics. There will also be journal club presentations that learners can participate in.

Various education activities and rounds are offered:

• Department of Supportive Care Grand Rounds
• Pain & Symptom Management Rounds

Overview

Eligibility Requirements:
Any learner registered in a Canadian UGME training program. For non-Canadian electives, please contact education coordinator.

Duration:
4-week rotation on the inpatient palliative care consult service.

Funding Requirements:
Not applicable.

Clinical Components:

• The palliative care team works alongside primary teams in the hospital to provide expert symptom management, palliative planning, navigation of goals of care, and end of life management to those with serious illness.
• The program serves patients and families living with a diversity of advanced illnesses, encompassing both malignant and non-malignant diagnoses. Recognized worldwide, the Toronto General Hospital provides care to a multitude of medical and surgical patient populations, including highly subspecialized populations such as multi-organ transplants, and complex cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. We are affiliated with Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, one of the largest cancer centres in the world, and thus also collaborate to care for patients receiving quaternary cancer care.

Research Components:
Not applicable.

Education/Teaching Components:

• Once a week - Tuesday afternoons through Temmy Latner
• Communication teaching - no specified date/time

Various education activities and rounds are offered:

• Department of Supportive Care Grand Rounds
• Pain & Symptom Management Rounds
  

Overview

Eligibility Requirements:
Any learner registered in a Canadian UGME training program. For non-Canadian electives, please contact education coordinator, Norine Mark.

Duration:​
The Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) Palliative Care Clinical Rotation can be 2-4 weeks in length.

Funding Requirements:
Not applicable.

Clinical Components:
We provide care primarily through our inpatient consultation service, as well as our outpatient Supportive Care Memory Clinic.

Our multidisciplinary team includes Physicians, a Clinical Nurse Specialist, a Social Worker, and a Spiritual Care Specialist. We serve patients and their families living with both malignant and non-malignant (non-cancer) serious illness.

The movement disorder, neurodegenerative, and neurosurgical care programs at Toronto Western Hospital and the Krembil Brain Institute are world renowned, and our rotation offers exceptional access to collaborate and care for patients in these programs.

65% of our referrals are for patients with non-cancer illnesses allowing us to offer unique, practical teaching and opportunities to build serious illness communication skills around variable illness trajectories and prognostic uncertainty.

Our team can be asked to provide consultation for any inpatient with a serious or life-limiting illness where there is need to support:

• Pain or other symptoms
• End-of-life care (e.g., a dying patient)
• Advance Care Planning
• Goals of Care
• Arranging home/clinic palliative care supports
• Screening for and applying to a Palliative Care Unit/Hospice

Research Components:
Not applicable.

Education/Teaching Components:
Our team strives to provide you with a tailored, high yield educational experience. During orientation we help learners build 2-3 specific learning goals for their rotation. Beyond this, formal educational opportunities include:

• Tuesday afternoon half day seminars through the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care. Topics include:
  • Pain and Dyspnea
  • Communication Skills
  • GI Symptoms
  • Psychosocial issues, Mood, Fatigue, and Delirium
• Access and protected time to complete two high yield, 20 minute e-modules which outline how to navigate a goals of care discussion using:
  • An evidence based structured conversation guide
  • Specific, easy to remember strategies on how to navigate strong emotion from patients and families
• 20 minute one-on-one simulation based teaching with a staff MD to practice above e-module skills
• Opportunity for observed encounters where learners practice managing symptoms, and leading foundational serious illness conversations

Additional educational activities:

• Daily multidisciplinary morning rounds
• Department of Supportive Care Grand Rounds
• Pain & Symptom Management Rounds

Overview

Eligibility Requirements:
CC3 doing core psychiatry clerkship rotations.

Duration:
3 weeks - Psychosocial Oncology.

Funding Requirements:
Not applicable.

Clinical Components:
The six-week Psychiatry course begins with centralized teaching sessions that occur during the first three days. The clinical experience takes place in a variety of settings including inpatient units, psychotherapy clinics, ambulatory clinics, consultation liaison teams, and emergency settings. Clerks can spend three of their six weeks of their rotation at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. An integral component of the course is interviewing patients and/or standardized patients with anxiety, mood, psychosis, cognitive, and substance disorders with focus on symptomatology, diagnosis, and basic treatment principles. All clerks will have exposure to psychiatric emergencies mostly by taking night and weekend on-call not exceeding one in five, until 11 p.m. Clinical experience with children and families take place during two half-days in a child psychiatry setting under the direct supervision of a child psychiatrist. Seminars are held weekly at each hospital site and include topics such as interviewing skills and dealing with challenging personality styles.

Research Components:
Not applicable.

Education/Teaching Components:
Various education activities and rounds are offered:

• Centre for Mental Health Evidence Based Mental Health Rounds
• Department of Supportive Care Grand Rounds
• PSO Clinical Case Conference
• Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End-of-Life Care (GIPPEC) Seminar

Website:

• Clerkship Courses - University of Toronto

Overview

Eligibility Requirements:
Any learner registered in a Canadian UGME training program. For non-Canadian electives, please contact education coordinator.

Duration:
2 to 4 weeks.

Funding Requirements:
Not applicable.

Clinical Components:
This experience includes an introduction to the role of psychiatry in oncology for inpatients and outpatients over age 18, covering all cancer types and disease stages. Students will learn about the psychiatric and psychosocial aspects of cancer for patients and families at diagnosis, during active treatment, in the event of recurrence, after completing treatment, through survivorship and during palliation and end-of-life care.

Research Components:
Not applicable.

Education/Teaching Components:
Students will have the opportunity to observe and perform psychiatric assessments with supervisors to aid in developing diagnostic and formulation skills, improving communication skills with medically ill patients, including at end of life.

Various education activities and rounds are offered:

• Centre for Mental Health Evidence Based Mental Health Rounds
• Department of Supportive Care Grand Rounds
• PSO Clinical Case Conference
• Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End-of-Life Care (GIPPEC) Seminar

Website:

• University of Toronto MD Electives