Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

Purpose: In India pain management is still not included in the medical curriculum of MBBS students and so these students after getting the basic degree to practice medicine have little or no knowledge of managing pain. This results in patients suffering in pain as pain becomes a secondary objective to treat as the whole energy and focus is spent on treating the primary illness. Palliative care is virtually non-existent in the north of India and it is not even mentioned in the medical curriculum and these results in unnecessary suffering of patients with expensive treatments continuing till the very end. To address this problem we started a â�?�?Pain and Palliative Careâ�? education program of one day duration with the aim to address both cancer pain management and palliative care with the medical students. Objectives of the course: â�?¢ To sensitize and provide basic knowledge of pain and palliative care. â�?¢ To assess the knowledge gained at the end of program by providing a pre and post questionnaire. Material & Methods to assess knowledge acquired after the end of programme: A total of 63 students took part in the filling the questionnaire before the start of programme and 52 students filled up the questionnaire after the conduct of programme. The mean percentage of all the individual questions were analyzed both before and after the programme and compared for effectiveness of programme. Results: The participants were able to answer the questionnare correctly after completion of the programme. There was improvement by 50% in the scores of correct answers. Conclusion: Educational programme on â�?�?Pain and Palliative careâ�? is effective in imparting primary knowledge of pain and palliative care which would goal long way and helping to relief patients suffering from unnecessary pain and sensitizing the students towards pain and the need of palliative care in patients.

Biography

Aarti Agarwal completed MBBS from BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur (India) in 1999 and then completed MD in Anaesthesia Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow in the year 1999. At present she is working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Anaesthesia, SGPGIMS, Lucknow.

Email: aarti_agarwal000@yahoo.co.uk