Psychosocial/Spiritual Aspects of Hospice and Palliative Care

Degree Offered

Postbaccalaureate Certificate

Program Description

Psychosocial/Spiritual Aspects of Hospice and Palliative Care is a 12-credit, online postbaccalaureate graduate certificate program designed to provide learners with experiences designed to foster a deeper knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial and spiritual considerations in caring for patients with a serious illness. Specifically, participants will acquire skills necessary to elicit patient and/or family values and delineate goals of care regarding pain and symptom management, advanced life-sustaining therapies, and advanced communication techniques for delivering bad news, establishing goals of care, suspending therapies, and death notification. Participants will also develop advanced skills in the assessment of patients and families to determine psychosocial needs, spiritual and cultural concerns, and address patient and family suffering, coping and healing within the emotional, psychological and social domains. Learners will also learn about common sources of personal stress that arise from working in this field, what self-care is, and why healthcare professionals should practice self-care. Last, participants will learn about the principles of adult learning and staff development, including principles of instructional design, and methods of informal learning (including social media).

Psychosocial/Spiritual Aspects of Hospice and Palliative Care is also a concentration of study within the Master of Science in Palliative Care (PALC-MS) program. Credits earned in the stand-alone certificate program may be applied toward the PALC-MS degree requirements.

Program Admission

The target learner audience includes practitioners who are working in hospice and palliative care or aspire to do so, including physicians, advance practice nurses, nurses, pharmacists, physician assistants, social workers, chaplains and grief/bereavement specialists.

Candidates for admission must meet the minimum standards of admission established by the Graduate School and provide the requisite credentials. Admission to the certificate program is highly selective. A U.S. bachelor’s degree or its equivalent from a non-U.S. educational institution is required. No specific undergraduate course of study is required or recommended. Graduate Record Examinations are not required for admission.

Degree Requirements

Certificate candidates must complete a minimum of 12 credits. Students must maintain a minimum, cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. All courses must be taken for letter grade; courses taken as Pass/Fail (P/F) or Audit (AU) do not count toward the certificate. All requirements for the certificate must be completed within three years after admission and all credits for the certificate must be completed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Complete guideline and requirements for progression and completion are outlined in the Academic Performance and Progress in a Postbaccalaureate Certificate Program section of this catalog.

Required Courses