Hospice of Palm Beach County's Education Department serves both internal and external constituencies through a wide range of programs that touch virtually every segment of our community. Thorough preparation of the staff, including detailed orientation classes for each new employee (an average of 27 per month) to lessons in 'Survival Spanish,' comprehensive education and training is the cornerstone of the organization's success.

Encompassed within the Education Department mandate are review classes for the national hospice certification program (an impressive 125 members of the staff have earned national certification in their clinical area) and end-of-life clinical experiences for student nurses. The hallmark of Hospice of Palm Beach County is the highest possible quality of medical and compassionate care, extended from the very first telephone call through the continuum of care to bereavement programs that follow the loss of a loved one.

External educational outreach involves an average of 235 presentations each quarter made to approximately 4,000 healthcare workers throughout the region. That means the Hospice team reaches more than 16,000 people a year in the area with information on how to care for end-of-life patients -- theirs and ours -- even better. Open houses occur three to four times a year at the Gerstenberg campus for numerous area schools and healthcare training facilities.

The Education Department also coordinates a hands-on skills workshop for clinical staff, using equipment that simulates real-life situations to train workers to provide top quality patient care. Nursing students have the opportunity to complete their end-of-life clinical experience through Hospice's inpatient program. Last year, 170 of them participated in the program, and six completed extended preceptorship (internship) training programs, one of whom was hired to the permanent staff. Even if these nurses do not remain in the field of hospice care, awareness of the benefits of the program incline them to refer patients to hospice when appropriate.