Development of required postgraduate palliative care training for internal medicine residents and medical oncology fellows.

BACKGROUND: The need for better care for terminally ill patients led us to create an educational program to provide internal medicine residents and medical oncology fellows basic competency in palliative and end-of-life care. METHODS: An interdisciplinary team identified educational strategies, course objectives, content, and evaluation instruments. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Our strategy is to use a required Web-based course to establish a knowledge base upon which specific training during clinical rotations build skills. Field testing of the Web course showed it was an effective tool for delivering clinically applicable content. Skill building experiences are now being integrated into selected clinical rotations.