When Patients Can't Be Cured: Mass. Med Schools Teaching More End-Of-Life Care

A hospice patient's end-of-life desires are most often thwarted when well-meaning loved ones see the patient in some sort of distress. New programs ask first-responder paramedics to work with hospice programs to better honor a person’s end-of-life wishes.

Despite its small student body population, Xavier University, a historically black college in Louisiana, graduates more African American students who eventually become doctors than any other college in the United States. Xavier’s leaders cite its culture of “competitive collaboration,” community of shared experiences and challenges based on race, and free upperclass tutoring services as some of the characteristics that make its students stand out.

Virtual reality is being used as part of medical education providing a way for nurses and other medical workers to better understand how a patient may experiencing their surroundings. Virtual reality modules have been created for blind, colorblind, dementia, and dying patients.

The Neem Foundation brings intensive counseling and 1-on-1 therapy to survivors who escaped the horrific violence of Boko Haram, a terrorist group in northeastern Nigeria. With months of aid and tough conversations, the organization attempts to reunite women and children who fled the violence with their families, many of whom shun the Boko Haram escapees.

At Cambridge Street Upper School, teachers, many of whom are white, meet regularly to discuss their own implicit biases and how they play out in a school in which 60 percent of students identify as black, Latino, or multiracial. "Cultural proficiency is no longer a separate thing we do once a month. It's at the center of what we do," the principal said.

Rural areas of Maine were being underserved when it came to dental hygiene, so the state opened a dental college and a loan repayment program in order to increase the amount of industry professionals. Since opening, the amount of dentists serving these areas has increased and now the university is looking to scale even further by increasing the amount offered in the loan repayment program.

Dementia units and long-term care homes for the elderly are often desolate and lonely places, with harried workers attempting to meet the needs of their patients while also meeting government-set metrics of success. For families and individuals, it can be difficult to imagine a better way. However, a pilot program in Canada called the Butterfly room is showing that dedicated efforts to making long-term care homes a vibrant and loving place for someone's last days has positive impacts for everyone - and is worth a government investment do right across the country.

A coordinated care program is helping provide in-home care to those who are considered pre-hopsice and who are combatting chronic health issues. While the program doesn't always financially help the hospitals it operates out of due to a reduction in emergency room visits, the patient is able to save almost half of what they would have spent on regular hospital visits.

Mozambique has a shortage of practicing surgeons, so medical technicians are being trained to fill their roles in various situations, especially in rural locations. Although there are challenges to using this tactic, the technicians-turned-surgeons have similar complication rates as those who are practicing surgeons.

In 2004, the Media Initiative set out to develop a trauma-informed curriculum for preschoolers in Northern Ireland. Using puppets, cartoons, and professional development, the social-emotional lessons have empowered students to better address conflict and communicate more effectively with each other. A Boston-based teacher education program is one of many who travel to Ireland to observe the program in action each year.