In January, 2004 a needs assessment survey was distributed to all Manitoba Palliative Care Nurses who designated palliative care as their specialty area of practice on their 2004 registration form. The survey was entitled "Preparedness of Manitoba Palliative Care Nurses to Practice Using the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Nursing Standards". This survey was based on the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Nursing Standards of Practice. The goal of the survey was not to evaluate whether palliative care nurses were practising under the standards but rather, if they felt prepared to practice using the national palliative care nursing standards. Feedback from Manitoba Palliative Care Nurses was used to develop a Palliative Care Nursing Continuing Education Guideline ( pdf format. To save to your hard drive, right-click on the link, and choose "Save Target As..." [for Internet Explorer and Opera], or "Save Link As..." [for Netscape]).

This guideline depicts practice challenges and priority educational needs as well as valuable information essential to future palliative care educational programming.

It is hoped that palliative care nurses will forward a copy of this guideline to their continuing education leaders so that future palliative care nursing educational program planning might be based on this guideline. Any inquiries regarding this guideline can be forwarded to grantham@mb.sympatico.ca I look forward to any comments that you may have.

Darlene Grantham