Palliative Care Certificate
Empower yourself to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients and families facing serious acute, chronic, or life-threatening illnesses.
As the demand and recognition for palliative care increases, healthcare employers are placing growing value on crucial skills such as evidence-based pain and symptom management, goals of care communication, advance care planning, care coordination, delivering goal-concordant care, and addressing the social, emotional, and spiritual care needs of patients and their families. Prominent professional bodies, such as the American Nurses Association acknowledges the integral role of palliative care in the practice of all nurses working with patients facing serious illness, and the American Academy of Nursing urges nurses to assume leadership roles in delivering high-quality palliative care and improving access to care for underserved populations and communities, and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing emphasize the integration of palliative care throughout the continuum of care and lifespan. Thus, essential palliative care training holds relevance for nurses across diverse healthcare settings, including acute, ambulatory, home, hospice, community, and long-term care settings.
Program Length
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Learning Format
Our Palliative Care Certificate program is both rigorous and flexible, keeping in mind the demands of balancing professional and personal lives. For example, the program is fully online, and the core courses are offered in the evening in an online synchronous format to maintain a highly interactive learning environment (e.g. goals of care communication workshop and interactive interfaith spirituality panel).
To obtain the certification, students will complete three course units, which consist of two required core courses and one elective course. The core courses are Principles of Palliative Care and An Evidence-based Approach to Managing Symptoms in Advanced Illness. These two core courses cover all eight domains of the National Consensus Project Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care.
A list of approved suggested electives is provided. Students can also submit a request for permission to elect a course from Penn Nursing not on this list but will need the program director’s approval.
Click the links below to view the curriculum and plans of study for this program.
BSN and MSN with a minimum GPA of 3.0
RN
Click here for additional requirements
Latest Decision Notification:
Summer start: mid-April
Fall start: mid-May
*Dates subject to change without notice.
Your program costs will depend on how many course units (CU) you take per semester.
Every student’s living situation and personal expenses are different, but below are the projected academic year Summer and Fall/Spring costs per CU. These can be multiplied by the total number of CUs in your part-time plan of study to estimate the total cost of a program:
School of Nursing certificate programs are not eligible for federal aid. However, some tuition assistance may be available to you via alternative loan programs, please follow this link to find out more: https://srfs.upenn.edu/financial-aid/loans/private-alternative. Students can always apply for personal loans through their bank.
Students can also sign up for a payment plan if they do not have tuition reimbursement from their employer or if they can’t pay their bill in full. The link for the Penn Payment Plan is: Penn Payment Plan | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn SRFS (upenn.edu).
Our program alumni frequently work in palliative care or incorporate primary palliative care skills in their practice. Several notable alumni of the program have been recognized as Emerging Leaders in Palliative Care by the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation (HPNF).
Elise C. Tarbi, PhD, MBE, CRNP, Nu’12 GNu’15, GR’20
Recognized as Emerging Leaders in Palliative Care by the HPNF, 2022