Call to palliative medicine: Young doctors urgently needed for the end of life!

Call to palliative medicine: Young doctors urgently needed for the end of life!

Palliative medicine in Austria is facing a crucial turn! Due to the increasing number of chronic diseases and demographic development, specialist knowledge in palliative care is urgently required. As Mag.a Barbara Schwarz, President of Hospiz Austria, emphasizes, it will need a collective effort to ensure the quality of life at the end of life. The foundation of a competence center for palliative medicine in Innsbruck and a new foundation professorship at the Medical University of Innsbruck already show the first steps in the right direction. This could be an answer to the shocking increase in the need for professional "end-of-life-care", which will increase by 40 % by 2040.

palliative medicine in medical studies: a need to catch up!

In order to keep up with the challenges, it is essential that medical students in Austria receive well -founded training in palliative medicine. According to the latest studies, only one of eight medical universities between 2 and 15 hours of lessons on this essential topic is offered, while the European Palliative Society recommends at least 40 hours. In Germany, palliative medicine has been a mandatory subject since 2009, which has led to a significantly increased interest among medical students, as Prof.in Dr.in Claudia Bausewein from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich reports. This training reform has the positive effect that prospective doctors can recognize palliative medical questions earlier and react adequately to it.

These findings underpin the demand from Hospiz Austria to significantly improve the training in palliative medicine in Austria. Sonja Thalinger, managing director of Hospiz Austria, demands the courage and the necessary knowledge of the young doctors: inside, to ensure comprehensive medical support until the end of life. The German Society for Palliative Medicine (DGP) also plays an important role in this context by ensuring qualitative standards and offers further training opportunities to meet the high demands.

Will Austria soon be better prepared for the challenges of palliative medicine? The course are set - now it is up to those responsible to bring about the urgently needed changes in medical studies in order to meet the requirements of the coming years. As the German Society for Palliative Medicine (DGP) further emphasizes, palliative care requires high-quality training and further education in order to meet the multidimensional requirements of the patient: