Palliative Care in Your Pocket: Creating a Toolkit to Serve Those with Serious Illness

Friday, June 27, 2025, 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM, Volney Richmond Auditorium, Seattle, WA

Building on the foundation of our 2018 event "Palliative Care is Everyone’s Job", we invite you to attend Palliative Care in YOUR Pocket: Creating a Tool Kit to Serve Those with Serious Illness.

This multidisciplinary course will help you build a personalized palliative care toolkit to use when caring for patients with serious illness. It will walk you through multiple domains of palliative care, including prognostication, symptom management, compassion, communication skills, the psychosocial and spiritual aspects of care, plus practical tools every care team member can integrate into their own practice.

In addition to lectures, this interactive course will incorporate music, art, storytelling, breakout sessions, didactics, improv, live demonstrations, TED style talks and more! This will surely be a worthwhile event where you leave with new skills and tools to improve the care of patients and families living with serious illness.

Teaching methods include lecture, Q&A with faculty, small group breakout sessions, and the voice of the patient.

1. Utilize a curiosity-driven approach to language that enables a deeper understanding of patients' goals, fears and priorities
2. Discuss the rationale for expanding the ability of non-palliative care clinicians to deliver basic palliative care
3. List 3 tools to identify people for whom prognostic transitions may be imminent
4. Identify when too much empathy in palliative care becomes toxic
5. Clarify the role and relevance of spiritual care in the hospital
6. Utilize a new framework to reflect on individual and systemic challenges in complex serious illness communication
7. Analyze the language that surrounds cancer and the effect it has on patients
8. Identify tools to support patients in implementing adaptive coping strategies
9. Summarize 4 common misconceptions about hospice

Register to attend this half day course in person or participate via livestream:

$195.00 - Attend in person (lunch provided)

$170.00 - Attend via Livestream - link will be provided.

Online registration will be open through Wednesday, June 25, 2025. For registration assistance, call the CME department at 206.341.0142 or email [email protected].

The Virginia Mason Medical Center is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Virginia Mason Medical Center designates this live activity for a maximum of 6.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. 

ABIM MOC: Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 6.75 MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.

AAFP: Application for CME credit has been filed with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). Determination of credit is pending.

Parking: Parking is not included with registration. Virginia Mason's downtown parking facilities are limited and reserved for patients, therefore we offer this map of public lots with walking routes to the Lindeman Pavilion.

Seattle Public transportation: Metro Bus routes serving the First Hill neighborhood include 2, 10, 12, 60, 193, and 303. Please consult the Metro Trip Planner for route information and schedules.

AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ (6.75 hours), Non-Physician Attendance (6.75 hours)

Mitigation of Relevant Financial Relationships

Virginia Mason Medical Center adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity, including faculty, planners, reviewers or others are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (commercial interests). All relevant conflicts of interest have been mitigated prior to the commencement of the activity.

Friday, June 27, 2025