Published on: March 30, 2022

In March 2022, with the commencement of our 100th Virtual Training Program, Pallium India has crossed a major milestone in our efforts to enable healthcare professionals in reducing unnecessary health-related suffering. A proud moment for the Virtual Education department, as well as for everyone associated with Pallium India.

Our virtual education journey that started in 2017, with the help of our partners Project ECHO and ECHO India, has enabled us to reach around 4500 individuals in 20 countries and all states of India.

Pallium India’s training programs are aimed at educating professionals, volunteers, students (medical and non-medical) and beneficiaries through knowledge dissemination, interactions and clinical case-based discussions, thereby reducing the gap between palliative care providers and recipients. The sessions are led by experts in the field of palliative care and are joined by participants from across the world with an aim to promote teamwork, improve communication and practice systematic approach within a framework centered on quality and standards.

Considering that COVID-19 is an amplifier of suffering for the patient and family, these clinics enabled us to offer palliative care education in the context of COVID-19. The program, named PalliCovid ECHO, a collaboration between Pallium India and PalliCovid Kerala, aimed to empower healthcare providers treating people with advanced COVID-19 to relieve the suffering of patients and families. The PalliCovid ECHO program was successful in reducing the sense of helplessness of the staff and improve their work-satisfaction and morale, and showed a reach to 15 countries and 1332 participants in a span of 15 months.

By designing unique palliative care training curricula for specialities care like Oncology, Pulmonology etc, we strive to integrate the concepts of palliative care into different domains of the health system. We have received tremendous responses from specialists across the country, demonstrating the pressing need for similar programs.

With increasing demand for palliative care education, and in our efforts to integrate palliative care in all healthcare and thus reducing unnecessary health-related suffering, our Virtual Training team is gearing up to reach many more in the years to come.

We are grateful for the support we have received in achieving this tremendous milestone, and are humbled by the responses to our programs. Every experience and story shared by the participants is a learning for us too.

Thank you everyone, for being a part of our work.