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Background: Basic palliative care teaching should be included in training curricula for health care providers (HCPs) at all levels of the health service to ensure that the goal set by the South African (SA) National Policy Framework and Strategy for Palliative Care, to have an adequate number of appropriately trained HCPs in South Africa, is achieved. Furthermore, palliative learning objectives for nurses and doctors should be standardised. Many SA medical schools have integrated elements of Palliative Medicine (PM) teaching into undergraduate medical training programmes for doctors; however, the degree of integration varies widely, and consensus and standardisation of the content, structure and delivery of such PM training programmes are not yet a reality. Aim: This joint position paper aims to describe the current state of undergraduate medical PM teaching in South Africa and define the PM competencies required for an SA generalist doctor. Setting: Palliative Medicine programme leads and teachers from eight medical schools in South Africa. Methods: A survey exploring the structure, organisation and content of the respective medical undergraduate PM programmes was distributed to PM programme leads and teachers. Results: Responses were received from seven medical schools. Through a process of iterative review, competencies were defined and further grouped according to suitability for the preclinical and clinical components of the curriculum. Conclusion: Through mapping out these competencies in a spiralled medical curriculum, the authors hope to provide guidance to medical curriculum designers to effectively integrate PM teaching and learning into current curricula in line with the goals of the SA National Policy Framework and Strategy on Palliative Care (NPFSPC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Children's Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) held its third international conference on children's palliative care in Durban, South Africa, from May 30 2018 to 2 June 2018. The conference--inspiration, innovation and integration--brought together 250 participants from 41 countries and was held in conjunction with local partners--Umduduzi Hospice Care for Children, Palliative Treatment for Children South Africa (Patch SA) and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of South Africa. It built on national and global developments in palliative care such as its inclusion in Universal health coverage (UHC), the Lancet Commission report on pain and palliative care and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and aimed to raise the profile of children's palliative care in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and nationally. Seven pre-conference workshops were held prior to the conference on topics such as pain and symptom management, children's palliative care within a humanitarian crisis, perinatal palliative care, research, developing programmes, ethical issues and difficult conversations in children's palliative care. Delegates were welcomed in true Durban style at the welcome reception hosted by the City of Durban and uShaka Marine World. The opening plenary included entertainment from the Open Air School and Hillcrest Primary School, and inspirational talks from the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Health, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Chief Executive of ICPCN and the Noble Peace Prize Nominee Dr MR Rajagopal from Pallium India. Plenary sessions were interspersed throughout the conference with 56 oral concurrent presentations and workshops, six 'Meet the expert sessions' 100 poster presentations and the South African Premier of the film 'Hippocratic: 18 Experiments in gently shaking the world'. There was a great feeling of networking and learning throughout the conference, with the conference being well evaluated, and an increase in the level of presentations and research from previous conferences demonstrating the steps that are being taken in children's palliative care globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]