Tempus fugit. It is now 10 years exactly since the first post appeared on this blog, setting out a new agenda for social science research at the University of Glasgow. The decade milestone brings a good moment for a little reflection, and also for a look forward. In March 2014, I’d just had confirmation of success… Continue reading
In a new article published in July 2022 in Health Policy, Professor David Clark, Anthony Bell and myself have taken a critical look at the commonly held presumption that future developments in palliative care are heavily dependent on the precondition of ‘policy’. This belief has become fixed in the field over the past 20 years in relation to a range… Continue reading
When in February 2014, I heard the news that my application for a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award had been successful, I could scarcely have imagined what would follow over the next six years. The Trust is perhaps unique among funders in the incredible extent to which it gives grantees the scope and encouragement to think… Continue reading
In summer 2018 I spotted a call from the Economic and Social Research Council seeking proposals to build collaboration between researchers in Japan and the United Kingdom, with no constraints on the subject matter. It looked an interesting opportunity. I quickly reached out to my Japanese colleague the philosopher Hirobumi Takenouchi and within a few… Continue reading
Palliative and end of life care is still a small field of activity, but it has quickly developed a global network of people who want to work together, often in productive ways. It was my pleasure in the last few weeks of 2018 to welcome to the University of Glasgow, Dumfries Campus some of the… Continue reading
Kerala’s community model for palliative care has sustained attention in global palliative care discourse, as an alternative, resource-effective form of organizing. What distinguishes the community model from professional-centric models such as hospices and hospitals, is that the community volunteers serve as the anchor in coordinating ‘total-care’ – i.e., medical, social, financial support and rehabilitation –… Continue reading
As an anthropologist, I am interested in assisted dying as a cultural practice and in the discourse surrounding it. What does it tell us about our culture and about its values? In line with historian Shai Lavi, I too contend that the most interesting ethical question pertaining to assisted dying is not “what should we do” but… Continue reading
It is almost 20 years since ideas about an integrated pathway for the care of the dying were formulated by John Ellershaw and his colleagues in Liverpool. When I first heard the originator speak about it at a lunchtime seminar in Sheffield in November 2001, I recall a two-fold reaction. On the one hand it… Continue reading
