End of Life Challenges and Palliative Care DUMF5150

  • Academic Session: 2023-24
  • School: School of Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Repeated in Semesters 1 and 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Taught Wholly by Distance Learning: Yes

Short Description

Around the world there is growing interest in palliative care, end of life issues, and the cultural values that surround dying, death, and bereavement. This has been further accentuated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This micro-credential will introduce learners to new critical perspectives from within the social sciences which will give them the tools to reflect on their professional and personal encounters with dying, death, and grief.

Timetable

10 weeks, fully online and can be accessed asynchronously by students.

There will be 10 pre-recorded lecture hours (1 hours per week) as well as 10 live seminar hours (1 hours per week) each semester.

Requirements of Entry

An undergraduate degree or equivalent professional and/or industry experience

Excluded Courses

None

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

1 x 1500 word reflective report (60%)

 

Students will use course materials to critically reflect on and connect two of the following issues: 1) the social processes that identify someone as nearing the end of life [ILO1]; 2) the main issues shaping the global spread of palliative care [ILO2]; and 3) identify and discuss an emerging response to contemporary dying, death, and bereavement [ILO3].

 

PechaKucha presentation - (40%)

 

Student will draw out and elaborate one theoretical or conceptual aspect from the unaddressed ILO [ILO 1, 2, or 3] to their professional practice or personal experiences with dying, death, and bereavement [ILO4]. There will be support on how to develop and record a PechaKucha presentation (a storytelling format where a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each).

Course Aims

The aims of this course are:

1. To enable students to critically assess the global development of palliative care;

2. To develop students' awareness of contemporary issues shaping end of life care more broadly, and emerging responses to these issues; 

3. To develop students' capacity to understand and discuss dying, death, and bereavement from an interdisciplinary perspective.

4. To enhance students' communication skills via engaging and professionally-relevant formats.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Explain the ways in which dying can be regarded as a social process as much as a biological event;

2. Explain the global spread of palliative care and articulate its core concerns and challenges;

3. Identify new and emerging responses to contemporary dying, death, and bereavement;

4. Critically reflect on and apply an interdisciplinary perspective to the student's professional practice or personal experience.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.