Duke University School of Nursing is one of the few to offer a palliative care certificate program for nurse practitioners.
Our palliative care specialty prepares nurse practitioners to deliver primary or specialty palliative care to individuals with serious illnesses and their families.
Whether you’re an MSN student or a licensed nurse practitioner looking to expand your practice, our palliative care nursing specialty provides the advanced training needed to deliver holistic patient- and family-centered care. Online coursework explores the management of complex symptoms and ethical considerations, empowering you to help patients maintain their quality of life across their illness trajectory.
Clinicals allow you to engage with advanced practice palliative care clinicians and interdisciplinary team members to deliver innovative care based on the latest evidence-based research. Our program prepares you to work as a palliative care nurse practitioner or add essential advanced practice palliative care skills to your existing specialty.
Palliative Care Nursing Certificate Highlights
Our palliative nursing program empowers you to work within this highly specialized field. The palliative care specialty courses are offered online, allowing you to learn from Duke School of Nursing’s renowned faculty and nationally and internationally recognized board-certified clinicians and scientists — no matter where you reside:
Nationally recognized faculty who are experienced palliative care nurses
Our two palliative and hospice board-certified nurse practitioners and our board-certified palliative and hospice administrators are joined by palliative care nursing faculty actively engaged in research advancing the science of palliative care for vulnerable populations. These individuals have trained with renowned leaders in palliative care nationwide, completed palliative externships, and are educated by and/or trainers for the End-of-Life Nurse Education Consortium (ELNEC).
Valuable clinical training and hands-on learning experiences:
Our palliative care specialty program includes 168 clinical hours. Synchronous and/or on-campus learning experiences provide opportunities to practice essential communication skills and develop evidence-based plans of care to support the diverse needs of patients and their families.
A curriculum focused on providing advanced practice palliative care:
You will develop the critical skills necessary to care for those with chronic, life-threatening illnesses. Beyond assessment, diagnosis, and symptom management, you will develop psychosocial and spiritual care skills to work with vulnerable populations with diverse cultural needs across the illness trajectory.
Palliative Care Nursing Specialty Courses
Didactic courses, simulation, and a clinical practicum provide the requisite knowledge and skills you need to provide palliative care to individuals across the lifespan. You’ll develop the critical therapeutic communication skills palliative care nurse practitioners need to support decision-making, facilitate advanced care planning, and navigate difficult conversations with patients and their families:
- NUR 851: Foundations and Physical Aspects of Palliative Care (Spring Only): The structure, process, principles, and philosophy of palliative care provide the course framework, teaching you how to assess and manage common symptoms, communicate, and develop care goals for patients and their families.
- NUR 853: Psychosocial Aspects of Palliative Care (Summer Only): This course will foster the knowledge and skills necessary to safely and effectively deliver comprehensive, culturally sensitive palliative care that respects the psychosocial needs, spiritual beliefs, practices, traditions, and values of seriously ill individuals and their families across the lifespan and continuum of care.
- NUR 855: Advance Practice Nursing: Palliative Care Specialty Across the Lifespan Synthesis: This course focuses on the synthesis of theory and clinical management skills to care for patients who require palliative care in a variety of settings across the lifespan. The course will also assist you in implementing the palliative care nurse practitioner role in a collaborative model of practice.
Learn More About the Palliative Care Nursing Specialty
Enrollment Options
If you are interested in adding the palliative care specialty to your academic plan, you must complete the Add a Specialty Form. This form must be submitted to the MSN Program Office via email at least 10 days before the start of the semester.
Nurse practitioners with an MSN degree or higher from a regionally accredited institution and nurse practitioner students from other regionally accredited colleges or universities interested in earning a certificate in our palliative care nursing specialty should follow the instructions for the Specialty Certificate application. The lead faculty of the specialty makes enrollment decisions based on space availability.
Specialty Director
Tara Albrecht
PhD, ACNP-BC, ACHPN, RN
Dr. Albrecht is an acute care nurse practitioner, certified advanced hospice and palliative nurse and a nurse scientist who has devoted her practice and research to the oncology and palliative care populations.
Learn more about Tara Albrecht: Scholars@Duke
Q&A With Lead Faculty Tara Albrecht
Skilled palliative care nurse practitioners create space for compassion, support, and hope while simultaneously delivering evidence-based clinical care to the patient and family as a unit. It is an area of nursing that is challenging in many ways but also deeply meaningful and rewarding.
Our Palliative Care Specialty program is one of only a handful across the country. As part of our No. 3-ranked graduate nursing school (U.S. News and World Report, 2024), the Palliative Care Specialty is an online program. We can provide quality education to various students nationwide by providing specialty education at a distance. Students learn from various board-certified clinicians and scientists from Duke University School of Nursing and the renowned Palliative Care Program at Duke University Hospital, who are nationally and internationally recognized for their work.
Any clinician enrolled in one of our nurse practitioner programs or who is an experienced nurse practitioner currently delivering care to individuals with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness. This may include clinicians who want to or are practicing in pediatrics, primary care, acute care, emergency care, intensive care, or other specialty care areas (e.g., cardiac, renal, hepatic, oncology, pulmonary, or infectious disease). Ultimately, patients and their families can benefit from clinicians who have received training and can provide primary palliative care services, as well as those who are palliative nursing specialists.
A clinician either enrolled in one of our nurse practitioner programs or who is an experienced nurse practitioner currently delivering care to individuals with a life-threatening illness.
By receiving training in palliative care through our palliative care certificate program at Duke University School of Nursing, clinicians will develop the critical skills necessary to improve the care of their patients with chronic, life-threatening, or life-limiting illnesses. For example, our students learn critical therapeutic communication skills through didactic learning and simulation, promoting decision-making, advanced assessment, diagnosis and symptom management, and psychosocial and spiritual care for various vulnerable populations with diverse cultural needs across the illness trajectory.