Instructors
All healthcare providers will care for individuals with serious illness across the continuum of care. Preparing learners to do this work with confidence and compassion is essential.
Life and Death Matters provides evidence-informed palliative care teaching resources aligned with core competencies and best practices—supporting educators to prepare learners to integrate a palliative approach across care settings.
Educators
Built for real classrooms. Our ready-to-teach palliative care resources reduce preparation time while supporting confident, compassionate instruction across diverse learner groups and care contexts.
College Instructors
Curriculum-aligned and flexible. Competency-based materials align with provincial and national requirements and integrate seamlessly into certificate, diploma, and PSW programs—either embedded or as stand-alone learning.
Nurse Educators
Practice-focused and clinically relevant. Case-based learning, NCLEX-style questions, and applied scenarios prepare nursing students to navigate complex conversations, ethics, and end-of-life care with confidence.
Teaching palliative care is an act of professional responsibility and care. It is meaningful work, yet it can also be demanding – requiring educators to balance curriculum requirements, learner readiness, and emotionally complex subject matter.
You might find yourself dealing with:
- The challenge of teaching complex emotionally charged topics, such as death, dying, loss, and grief, while supporting learners with varying levels of readiness and lived experience.
- Uncertainty about how deeply to go, including how to balance required competencies with creating safe space for reflection, discussion, and meaningful learning.
- Student discomfort, anxiety, or avoidance, particularly when learners are encountering palliative care concepts for the first time or bringing personal experiences into the classroom.
- Limited time and instructional support, making it difficult to prepare lessons that are both well-structured and responsive to the realities of care practice.
How Can We Help?
We support educators in teaching palliative care with clarity, confidence, and care—without adding to already full workloads. Our resources help you create safe, thoughtful learning environments where students can develop both professional skill and personal readiness. Whether you teach in classrooms, clinical programs, or continuing education, we help you prepare learners for the realities of care from early diagnosis through end of life.
Instructor Content Preview
The Instructor Content Preview provides a limited, read-only overview of the Instructor Package for evaluation purposes. It includes a table of contents, chapter summaries, and selected sample content from the digital text, along with related podcast and video materials. To request access, enter your information below. Once approved, you will receive an email with an invite code to access the preview in our digital library.
We work to ensure every person facing end of life receives compassionate, respectful care and support
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This text will serve students long after their program of study has completed and will guide, prepare and inspire them throughout their professional lives.
Read moreSarina Corsi
BA, Med, Program Manager, BC Care Aide & Community Health Worker Registry
The section on self-care, an area that students feel they do not need to study, contains concrete information on its importance and ideas for developing...
Read moreZola Goebel
Director – Sprott Shaw College Lead Curriculum for Health Care Assistant curriculum
