With 70 registered each year, half doctors, half nurses, plus a handful of physiotherapists and psychologists, the interuniversity diploma (DIU) supervised by Elise Perceau-Chambard, head of service at Lyon-Sud hospital , “does not know the crisis”, she welcomes. Entitled “Deepening in palliative care”, it offers healthcare professionals, most of whom already trained in these practices, the opportunity to compare their experiences and improve their clinical, therapeutic and ethical approaches, with a view to ensuring the best quality of care and the best quality of life until the patient’s death.
When she was on an internship in the Lyon palliative care unit in the 2000s, Elise Perceau-Chambard had “a spark, a crush”. After her thesis, she never left the unit until she took over as its director. The professor transmits her enthusiasm easily, this Monday, March 6, in the small amphitheater of the hospital. On the screen, she projected a Venus exhibited at the British Museum, in London. Six shots, each from a different angle, illustrate the complementarity of professional perspectives that will drive a palliative care team. “The patient is the person for whom we put ourselves in service in order to understand all the subjectivity of his situation”she defines.
On the program of the IUD, several sessions, where are examined the practices to calm a rebellious pain, to counter a refractory symptom, to test an innovative drug treatment once morest depression or a delirium, to think regarding the best way to feed a patient at the end of life … Role-playing enriches the relational skills necessary to take charge of the existential, social and psychological distress of the patient and his entourage. The “students” paid 1,300 euros for a hundred hours of lessons, an internship and a written exam which will allow them to return to their own departments. “better armed” to relieve and support their patients.
What posture to adopt?
The university system is such that only volunteer interns and caregivers can train in palliative medicine. Like Catherine (the people cited by first name wished to remain anonymous), a psychologist for twenty-six years and holder of a diploma course in gerontology. When she joined a mobile palliative care team in Bourg-en-Bresse seven years ago, she used her experience and knowledge of concepts such as support and bereavement. “But I miss the medical and paramedical approaches on a daily basis”she explains.
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