Healthcare Professionals

Hospice of the Valley helps patients nearing the end of their lives, as well as supporting their families and friends through our hospice and palliative health care. Our goal is to offer comfort, dignity and pain relief so people can live as fully as possible.

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Online Professional Education Offerings:
The following CME* accrediited modules are targeted to physicians.

To take a course simply click one of the links below, fill out the registration form including your email address. The link for the course will be immediately emailed to the account you provided.

Click here for a list of the technical requirements

Click here to view HOV's Privacy Policy for CME.

Basic Pain Management - Pain occurs in 65-85% of patients with advanced cancer, and many of those rate the pain as “severe” in their last week of life. This course was developed to teach physicians the basic principles of pain management, including prescribing sufficient doses to manage severe pain, and side-effects.

Upon successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:

  • Explain the different types of pain and basic pain management options.
  • Explain how to prescribe, titrate and change routes of common opioids.
  • Describe common side-effects of opioids.
  • Recognize the palliative care concept of “double effect”.


Cultural Issues in Palliative Medicine - Cultural competency, or the ability to recognize the ways in which various cultures interact and sometimes conflict, is essential in order to provide good medical care. This course was developed to teach physicians to be aware of their patients’ cultural behaviors, as well as their own biases and emotional responses, thereby allowing them to provide more effective medical care. Please note this course contains several video clips. A high speed connection is recommended for optimal viewing.

Upon successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:

  • Recognize how cultural beliefs and attitudes can affect the medical care we provide.
  • Be able to identify when our own cultural beliefs and attitudes are influencing our perceptions and therefore our medical care.
  • Recognize that the medical system itself is a culture that influences the ways in which we interact with our patients and their families.

Dyspnea - Dyspnea is a common symptom in the advanced stages of many diseases, and causes much suffering. Yet physicians are seldom explicitly taught palliative (non-curative) methods of relieving dyspnea. This module was developed to teach physicians how to identify dyspnea, and how to manage it with both medications and non-pharmacologic interventions.

Upon successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:

  • Define dyspnea and describe assessment of this symptom.
  • Describe use of medications to manage dyspnea.
  • Identify five non-pharmacologic interventions to manage dyspnea.
  • Recognize admission criteria to hospice for patients with pulmonary disease.


Managing Agitation in Dementia - Dementia often goes undiagnosed, and when diagnosed, physicians do not always recommend the most appropriate treatment options. This educational module was developed to address the need for improved training for physicians and other healthcare professionals in diagnosing and treating dementia.

Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Explain the most important behavioral measure in managing dementia
  • Describe 3 common medication mistakes in managing agitation
  • Recognize when to refer a patient with dementia to hospice.


* Hospice of the Valley is accredited by the Arizona Medical Association to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Hospice of the Valley designates these educational activities for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 credits TM. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Questions?
If you have any questions or if you experience any difficulty running the modules, please call Vicki Hochstetler, Administrative Director of Medical Education 602.530.6942 or email.

In order to view the modules you will need the following:

The minimum requirements to run the modules on your computer are:

  • For Windows based PC:

• Internet Explorer Version 5 or higher
• Mozilla Firefox Version 1.5
• Netscape Navigator Version 7.1
• AOL Version 9
• Flash Player Version 8 or higher

  • Mac based PC:

• Safari Version 1.1 or higher
• Mozilla Firefox Version 1.5
• Flash Player Version 8 or higher