Ten universities joined Emory University in 2020 to form a national consortium focused on introducing palliative care principles throughout undergraduate curricula. The project, supported by a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, links palliative care clinicians with undergraduate faculty in the sciences, humanities, and beyond to address universal themes including death, loss, and suffering.
During the 2020 academic year, palliative care faculty presented in undergraduate sociology, bioethics , history of medicine, and other courses. Undergraduate faculty in sociology, psychology, history, and other disciplines added palliative material to courses on death and dying, philosophy of science, and ancient Greek literature.
“We are thrilled at the response from students and faculty alike,” said Dr. Tammie Quest, Division Chief of Palliative Medicine at Emory. “Loss and meaning-making are universal human experiences, and the past year has demonstrated how important and necessary it is to communicate about them at all stages of development.”
The consortium partners are: Dartmouth College, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of California San Diego, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Pittsburgh and University of Texas at Austin.
