Creating a Palliative Care Workforce

Creating the Palliative Care Workforce for Today and Tomorrow; Peggy Maguire in Health Affairs

By Rob Goodman
Creating a Palliative Care Workforce
The field of palliative care continues to grow and, based on expected U.S. population growth projects, an aging population means an increased need for experts in palliative care. In the United States, there will be roughly 83.7 million people age sixty-five and older by 2050. Who is ensuring that there will be properly trained medical experts in the field of palliative care? The Cambia Health Foundation is.
 
Being a catalyst for change is never easy. But we realized that this growing field needed to have a pipeline of doctors and nurses who understand the issues surrounding palliative care, such as how are palliative care programs organized, what are the religious or culture sensitivities? That is one of the reasons why we started the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program, to train the next generation of palliative care leaders to advance the field of palliative care. 
 
Foundation president and board chair Peggy Maguire recently authored a blog post that appeared in Health Affairs. The post not only discusses the Foundation’s interest in and development of the field of palliative care, but also highlights how two Sojourns Scholars, Dr. Arif Kamal and Lynn Reinke, RN, have helped advance the field of palliative care.