The Department of Palliative and Supportive Services offers educational programs in Palliative Care, Applied Gerontology, Palliative Care in Aged Care and Paediatric Palliative Care, geared towards multidisciplinary health care professionals. Programs can be studied at a Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma or Master’s level. All courses are external, taught online via the internet.
Our research is focused on providing systematic, clinically relevant and rigorous evidence for palliative and supportive services.
Academics, researchers and support staff of the Department of Palliative and Supportive Services are located at Southern Adelaide Palliative Services at the Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park, South Australia. In addition, there is a large ‘virtual’ departmental community, contributing to research and education.
About the Department of Palliative and Supportive Services
The Palliative Care Unit of Flinders University was established in 1988, with the first Chair in Palliative Care in Australia. Since this time, the Department has grown in response to professional demand, continually updating and expanding its courses and topic offerings in order to provide the highest standard of education possible.
The Department has a long-standing experience in offering quality postgraduate education in palliative care by distance, by the Internet and by intensive workshops. Current students come from many different professional disciplines and settings, from around metropolitan and regional Australia and Overseas. (click here for further information on the Department of Palliative and Supportive Services)
What are Palliative and Supportive Services?
Palliative care aims to support people who are living with a progressive incurable illness. Palliative care draws on the skills and expertise of many different disciplines to ensure holistic care of the patient and their family. Nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, speech therapists, social workers, psychologists and others can all contribute to a palliative care approach.
A palliative care approach is relevant in paediatrics, general practice, aged care, acute care and community settings, hospitals and hospices – that is, regardless of where the patient is and who is delivering services.
The term 'palliative and supportive services' covers the care given to the families and friends of a person with a progressive and incurable illness.
What is Applied Gerontology?
Gerontology is the multidisciplinary study of human ageing. It incorporates virtually every discipline from anthropology, biology, demography, economics, and ethics to law, nutrition, psychology, sociology and more.
Applied Gerontology aims to understand how evidence from empirical studies of ageing processes and older people can be translated into practice or policy, utilised in applied settings to support decisions about how best to enhance quality of life of older people, or broaden practitioners and students of the diversity encountered in the ageing process.
Our programs in Applied Gerontology are prepared and taught by
experts in a selection of disciplines, all of whom either work directly
with older people, engage in policy development and delivery, or
conduct cutting edge research programs on ageing.