Can you imagine fifty medical students and fifty palliative care practitioners giving up what might be the last warm, sunny Saturday of the year to attend a symposium about someone who was born ninety seven years ago? The attendees’ attraction and motivation would have to be high. And so they were on 17 October at… Continue reading
I genuinely didn’t know anything about Dr Feelgood. The film title ‘The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson’ was also a mystery to me. The online blurb about the film was similarly obscure, describing how director Julien Temple had produced an ‘overflowing visual cocktail’ serving up ‘Bunuel, Tarkovsky, Cocteau and Marcel Powell as fellow travellers on his… Continue reading
The night is black all around. The ‘supermoon’ is rising over the loch behind us. The damp air is on our backs. But our faces are warmed by the fire. The talk, drifting over the flames, is about mortality. This is the EAFS ‘off grid’ environmental festival, where artists, writers, makers and dreamers of dreams… Continue reading
Being taken round a New Zealand hospice I was amused and, let’s admit it, thrilled to see a well-worn copy of the book, its hard cover almost falling off. “Well used !” I said to the doctor. “ Yes indeed” he said: “perfect for holding up the old piano!” Thankfully he then pointed to two… Continue reading
The public has responded to a call for views on the state of palliative care in Scotland, and with the publication of these submissions the Scottish Parliament Inquiry into Palliative Care is making rapid progress. I am struck by two things: the great variety of these responses, but also the rather low volume. Perhaps that tells… Continue reading
Dame Cicely Saunders died at St Christopher’s Hospice on 14 July 2005, at the age of 87. This is an interview I recorded with her just a few months earlier. I first met Dame Cicely in 1995 and over the next decade we worked together on various projects. She was a keen supporter of my work… Continue reading
These are important times for palliative and end of life care in Scotland, and with an ongoing parliamentary inquiry into palliative care we are all eager to see what the outcomes will be. But first we must all play our part. I am already involved as the Consulting Editor in the production of the Scottish… Continue reading
The University of Glasgow awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science to Derek Doyle, one of the pioneers of modern palliative care, in July 2014. Since then Dr Doyle has been a popular and regular contributor to our blog. Here he blogs about the origins of palliative medicine as a specialty. Some readers may… Continue reading
