End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program

COURSE OVERVIEW

Faculty member Charlie Garfield, Founder, Shanti Project, Professor UCSF School of Medicine and Ramita Bonadonna RN/Educator, program graduate, Foley Beach SC

The innovative and comprehensive nine month trainin End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program offers an unparalleled opportunity for personal and professional development. Our faculty is world-class and dedicated to experiential learning. The one-year course is designed to provide essential clinical competencies, strengthen individual capacity for compassionate service, and enhance spiritual development. Graduates join a national network of dedicated peers encouraging creative solutions as educators, advocates, and guides to the dying.

We are committed to transformative learning geared to self-motivated mature adults. This is not a course for beginners. Our teaching builds on the each participant's self-awareness, their direct experience with dying, and their pre-existing knowledge of end-of-life care.

We emphasize "learning while working". Participants commute to monthly sessions in the SF Bay Area. These sessions offer innovative approaches to the multiple dimensions of end-of-life care. The meetings also build a sense of community among practitioners with a shared vocation, reducing isolation by strengthening mutual support. Fieldwork in your local community provides for immediate application of course material and the development of local networks. Faculty mentoring and other elements foster integration of lessons learned and the experiences evoked in the course.

"The training was a life-changing experience."
Vicki Jackson MD
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Boston, MA

Our aim is to develop counselors who can be true partners—"midwives to the dying"—and innovative educators. Going beyond the medical model, we emphasize the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of the dying experience. The program increases participants' skills and cultivates their capacity for presence, wisdom, and compassion.

Faculty member Rachel Naomi Remen MD, Co-Founder of Commonweal Center, Professor UCSF School of Medicine and Cheryl Nelson MSW Boise ID

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